Three Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) workers have been arrested for allegedly carrying out the murder of a Popular Front of India (PFI) leader in Palakkad district of Kerala on 15 April, police said on Tuesday, 19 April.
They also added that the trio were friends of an RSS leader, who was killed in November last year. Palakkad witnessed two brutal murders of a PFI and an RSS leader on 15-16 April.
Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Vijay Sakhare told PTI that three persons – Ramesh, Arumughan, and Saravanan – who are all RSS workers, have been arrested and they are believed to have killed PFI leader Subair (43) to avenge the death of RSS leader Sanjith in November 2021.
Of the three, Ramesh was a very close friend of Sanjith, and according to the accused, the latter had said that if anything ever happens to him, Subair would be responsible for it, the ADGP said.
Pre-Planned Murder: Police
However, the investigation into Sanjith's killing had not disclosed Subair's involvement, the senior officer pointed out. Therefore, after Sanjith's murder, Ramesh allegedly started planning the murder of the PFI leader and the trio tried to kill him a couple of times, but were unsuccessful due to the presence of police in the area.
On 15 April, they carried out the murder, the officer said.
Sakhare also told PTI that efforts are on to ascertain whether there are any other conspirators, or supporters and all that is part of the investigation. With regard to the killing of RSS leader SK Srinivasan (45), Sakhare said the accused have been identified.
"They are absconding. So the hunt is on to arrest them," the officer said.
Sakhare, on Monday, had said that among the culprits identified so far in both cases, there were party members or workers from both PFI-Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-RSS.
Background
On 15 April, 43-year-old Subair, a PFI leader was killed in a village near Palakkad. He was allegedly hacked to death at Elappully in the district while he was returning home after offering prayers in a mosque on Friday afternoon.
Subair was allegedly hit by a car while on a bike with his father and attacked using sharp-edged weapons. Subair's father, who allegedly suffered injuries after falling from the bike, has been admitted to a hospital, police said.
Police said that the car abandoned by Subair’s killers was registered in the name of Sanjith, an RSS worker who was killed last year allegedly by activists of the SDPI, the political offshoot of the PFI.
Within 24 hours, on 16 April, 45-year-old Srinivasan was hacked to death by a gang in Palakkad.
The RSS worker was attacked by a group of assailants at his shop in the heart of Palakkad town, where the suspects reportedly arrived at the spot on motorbikes. Reacting to the attack, the BJP alleged that the SDPI was behind the killing of Srinivasan.
The back-to-back killings is the second such incident in the past few months in Kerala. In December last year in Alappuzha, an SDPI leader and a BJP leader were murdered within 12 hours.
(Published in an arrangement with The News Minute.)
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