Since October, 2016, as many as 14 RSS workers have been killed in Kerala. RSS Joint General Secretary Dattatreya Hosable has demanded a judicial probe in the sustained killings allegedly by the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

RSS has received support from BJP in this battle. Coming down hard on the lawlessness in Kerala, BJP MP Meenakhi Lekhi called Kerala “God’s Forsaken Country” in the ongoing Parliament session. The party has further accused the state government of inaction. Tomorrow, senior party leader and Union Minister Arun Jaitley will be visiting the home of a RSS worker who was killed last week.

Cornered on the issue, CPM first tried to deny these murders and finally they made ridiculous statements trying to downplay and even justify the violence. Have a look at the following reactions:

CPM leader A Vijayaraghavan blames RSS for using RSS member Rajesh’s muder to nationlise the issue, says as if ‘Gandhi has been murdered’ pic.twitter.com/g7wwiXpGvn — India Today (@IndiaToday) August 4, 2017

CPM leader A Vijayaraghavan says threat to kill RSS workers was a natural reaction to attack by Sangh. Which attack I ask. He doesn’t know. pic.twitter.com/YrUzOvvz8p — Rahul Kanwal (@rahulkanwal) August 4, 2017

Shocking video released of CPM activists threatening to kill Sangh workers. Brinda Karat denies they are CPM workers Kerala’s Killing Fields pic.twitter.com/DOpopvJdgj — Rahul Kanwal (@rahulkanwal) August 4, 2017

CPI(M) local Secretary from Malappuram in Kerala, who is also a college teacher, wants to chop RSS workers and eat with chilly! Anyone? pic.twitter.com/sbxVUoDIGk — Amit Malviya (@malviyamit) August 4, 2017

With the Kerala CPM leaders making a mess, it was left to left-leaning journalists and activists to downplay the incidents. It should be noted that many journalists and leftists had supported a murderous troll who always used to celebrate whenever an RSS or BJP worker was killed in Kerala or elsewhere in the country, but clearly such an approach will not impress an apolitical or “neutral” person. They tried to indirectly make these murders “lesser”.

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Many journalists and ‘activists’ first tried to claim that violence was not the monopoly of the communists, however the recent data of 14 murders was exposing their claim; they could not flash a similar number of communists being killed.

They were soon helped by a tweet by an NDTV journalist, who shared alleged Kerala police records on killings of murders of CPM, BJP/RSS, Congress and Muslim League activists:

This proved to be the Oxygen some apologists needed to downplay the killings of RSS members.

Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor was one of them, who was quick to share this data. He tried to downplay the death of RSS workers by claiming that CPM victims were more in number:

Amid all the disinformation, a dose of reality. More CPM victims than RSS/BJP in last 15 years. Still 172 political murders are 172 too many https://t.co/tBeFreV13Y — Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 4, 2017

He was immediately countered by many, including author Advaita Kala — who has played an important role in bringing this information about Kerala killings to the Delhi based media — who asked why only partial data was shared:

Disinformation? Why does this data set start in 2000 when the first murder was in 1969? Who killed Congress workers – figures for those? https://t.co/HDoETHGLmP — Advaita Kala (@AdvaitaKala) August 4, 2017

Tharoor was slammed by others too for his tweet. People pointed out that the data, even if taken on face value, actually implicates Tharoor’s own party than BJP or RSS:

Kerala is ruled by either Left or Congress in last 15 years, not RSS/BJP. So who should answer for 172 political murders during this time? https://t.co/y3CWpN7mQJ — Raju Das | ৰাজু দাস (@rajudasonline) August 5, 2017

Considering those nunbers too, the cpm numbers mainly because of UDF due to traditional rivalry. Good you confirmed. https://t.co/YHddYC5xc3 — Sriniwaas Manur (@ABODEofLAKSHMI) August 5, 2017

That is Congress for you people. Instead of condemning the politically motivated brutal killings, these guys will find fake data to vat it. https://t.co/XafULjOsm6 — WhatsinaName? (@paharganj2paris) August 4, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsTharoor’s tweet is indeed shocking as he starts by downplaying the current spate of murders by claiming “disinformation”, and ironically goes on spread disinformation himself.

No context or details of the data he shared was provided. As Advaita Kala pointed out, the data obtained is from 2000 onward while the first political murder in Kerala took place way back in 1969, when RSS worker Vadikkal Ramakrishnan was killed. RSS has accused that Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, who was then with the youth wing of CPM, to be involved in the murder.

So not only many murders of RSS members were left out in that data shared by the NDTV journalist and promoted by Tharoor, the fact that many CPM members could be murdered by the UDF (Congress alliance) supporters was also not clarified.

The political murders scene in Kerala is pretty bad where even communists are accused of killing other communists. In 2014, CPM leaders and 7-man gang was held guilty of killing Marxist rebel T P Chandrasekharan. Similarly, Congress and CPM too are engaged in a bloody war with many cases seeing convictions by courts. However, this misleading data was used to downplay the current spate of killings of RSS workers.

It appears that Shashi Tharoor has become numb in counting dead bodies. What a fall for a man who was once a respected author and commentator.