Leadership must liberate student politics from weapons: Kerala Legislative Assembly Speaker on SFI worker's murder

Kerala Legislative Assembly Speaker MB Rajesh on Wednesday termed the incident of the alleged murder of a Students Federation of India (SFI) worker at an engineering college in Idukki as "painful and heartbreaking" and said that leadership must liberate student politics from weapons.

"The incident is painful and heartbreaking. There is no question of politics involved in it. Weapons are taken in the hands when politics is not ideological. Knives and swords are the weapons of the ideologically disarmed. Such forces must be isolated. Therefore, prudent leadership must liberate student politics from weapons and lead it to ideas," Rajesh said while speaking to media persons.

Condemning the incident, he said, "Violence is violence. Violence in the name of politics, love, religion and everything must be opposed and rejected."

He further said that at one time in the past there have been many such incidents in Kerala but "it has not happened in the last few years."

"Negative prejudices have been created about student conflict and student politics. The unfortunate incident that happened is an event that confirms those prejudices. This is an incident where those who try to use those prejudices are given weapons in their hands. Naturally, there will be propaganda that student politics is the reason for this. So the old adage that student politics should be banned is likely to be revived. The equation that student politics is equal to violence is incorrect," the Legislative Assembly Speaker said.

Dheeraj Rajendran, a Students' Federation of India (SFI) activist and seventh-semester engineering student of the Government Engineering College, Idukki was allegedly murdered by political opponents in a clash related to his college union election.

The police have arrested two youth congress workers in connection with his death.

( With inputs from ANI )

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