Armed with sickles, assailants hack BJP leader to death at busy market in TN

india

Updated: Jan 27, 2020 19:29 IST

A local BJP functionary was hacked to death by an armed gang at the busy Gandhi market in Trichy city on Monday.

The victim, Vijayaraghu, who is BJP’s zonal secretary and a contractor of the vehicle parking lot in the same market, was brutally assaulted by a three-member gang at a tea shop.

As shell-shocked public ran helter skelter, the assailants wielding machetes and long sickles fled the scene leaving Vijayaraghu in a pool of blood.

The Gandhi market police moved the severely wounded BJP functionary to the Government Hospital. The victim later succumbed to his injuries.

BJP workers gathered near the hospital and demanded that the assailants, whom they claimed were Islamic fundamentalists, be arrested.

The party workers also resorted to road blockade and dispersed only after the police assured them of speedy action.

The preliminary inquiries by the police have revealed that the murder was due to personal enmity between one ‘Mithai’ Babu and his associates with the victim. Even earlier, Mithai Babu, who runs a mobile lottery outlet and is out on bail, had made an attempt on Vijayaraghu, police added.

Special teams, headed by an additional commissioner of police, have been formed to nab the absconding culprits.