Thiruvananthapuram, April 16 Opposition parties - Congress and BJP - in Kerala slammed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday while accusing him for "inept handling" of the law and order in the state after two murders at same place within two days was reported in Palakkad district.
On Friday noon, Subair, a 43-year-old activist of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), was murdered by a group of men. The SDPI alleged that the attackers were RSS activists. Meanwhile on Saturday, at around the same time, Sreenivasan (45), a former top RSS local leader, was hacked to death by a group of five persons who were alleged to be SDPI activists. Both the cases have been reported from Palakkad district and the pattern "indicates" a case of "revenge killing".
Incidentally, these two murders at Palakkad came nearly four months after a similar double murder that took place in Alappuzha, wherein first a SDPI activist was allegedly killed by RSS activists and in less than 12 hours a young lawyer, who had contested on a BJP ticket, was allegedly hacked to death by SDPI activists.
State BJP president K. Surendran made it clear that since Vijayan has become an "abject failure in handling the law and order situation in the state, the Centre should have to intervene".
"In Alappuzha, we lost a top local leader who had a clean record and the same happened on Saturday, when we lost Sreenivasan who has no cases against him. The way things are going on in Kerala clearly shows that Vijayan has lost grip of the law and order situation. If he cannot handle it, then the Centre will have have to be called in," said Surendran.
Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan said that the Kerala Police remains a mute spectator when murders are happening at regular intervals. "The Vijayan government appears to in celebration mode of their first anniversary, but they have no moral right to do so as it has failed miserably in all fields and the situation is so grave that 'Kasargod to Thiruvananthapuram' has turned out to be a 'corridor of goons'."
"The communal SDPI and the RSS are now vying with one another to destroy peace in the state and sadly the presence of minority and majority communal elements have now entered the Kerala Police also. The situation is such that Kerala is now living in fear," he added.
However State CPI-M secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said both the murders that took place appears to be well-planned.
"Both these communal elements have the machinery to carry out planned attacks like this. In Alappuzha, after the murders took place, there was a good follow up action by authorities which helped to douse things. We all wish that such a thing will happen at Palakkad also," said Balakrishnan.
He also slammed the BJP and said "they engage in killings and then blame the law and order situation".
"First they should stop engaging in such acts and then say all these things," added Balakrishnan.
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