2 more held in Kerala RSS leader murder case

Two more persons were arrested in connection with the killing of an RSS leader recently in Palakkad district, bringing the total number of arrests in the case to 9 till date.

Palakkad(Kerala): Two more persons were arrested in connection with the killing of an RSS leader recently in Palakkad district, bringing the total number of arrests in the case to 9 till date, police said on Sunday. ADGP (Law and Order) Vijay Sakhare told the media that of the two arrested, one was directly involved in carrying out the attack on RSS leader S K Srinivasan (45) on April 16. He said that police have identified all the persons involved, including the conspirators, collaborators and harbourers, in the killing of Srinivasan and more arrests will follow soon.

Sakhare further said around 14-15 people were part of the conspiracy and in furtherance of the same they had initially made attempts to kill two other RSS leaders and on failing to find their intended targets, who had gone into hiding, they targeted Srinivasan. Since Srinivasan was not actively involved in party work or politics for some time, he probably did not apprehend any threat to his life and had therefore not gone into hiding like the other two RSS leaders, the senior officer said. He, however, did not disclose the names of the two RSS leaders who had escaped attacks on their lives.

Most of the arrested accused in the Srinivasan case are workers of the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political offshoot - Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), police said. The RSS leader was killed in retaliation to the murder of PFI leader Subair (43) on April 15. Three RSS workers have been arrested in connection with the killing of Subair. All three were of RSS leader Sanjith who was killed in the district in November last. Police had said it believed the murder of the PFI leader was to avenge the death of Sanjith and the killing was planned by his close friend Ramesh, who is one of the three accused arrested by the agency.

Srinivasan, a former district leader and office-bearer of RSS, was attacked by a six-member gang at his motorbike shop in Melamuri near here on April 16, barely 24 hours after Subair was hacked to death at Elappully in the district while he was returning home along with his father after offering prayers in a mosque on April 15 afternoon. The back-to-back killings involving BJP/RSS and SDPI/PFI is the second such incident in the past few months in Kerala. In December last, a leader of the SDPI and a leader of the BJP were murdered in Alappuzha within 24 hours.

PTI