Alappuzha (Kerala): Kerala's coastal Alappuzha district was rocked by back-to-back killings of two party leaders, the first belonging to the SDPI and the second to the BJP, leading to clamping of prohibitory order by police on Sunday.
Following the killing of an SDPI state secretary, a BJP leader was hacked to death subsequently in 12 hours and prohibitory order under CrPC Section 144 was imposed in the entire Alappuzha district on Sunday, district officials said.
KS Shan, the state secretary of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) in Kerala, was brutally attacked on Saturday night while he was going to way home and his party alleged that the RSS was behind it.
Shan succumbed to his injuries at a Kochi hospital around midnight, police said.
Hours later, BJP's OBC Morcha's state secretary Ranjith Sreenivasan was hacked to death in his home by some assailants, who barged into his house on Sunday morning, police said.
Police said it suspects the fatal attack on Sreenivasan, also a member of the BJP state committee, was in retaliation to the killing of Shan.
The SDPI leader was on his way home when a car rammed into his bike and as he fell down, the assailants attacked him leading to his death, police said.
With the BJP's leader's killing, prohibitory order was clamped.
By afternoon, IG Harshita Attaluri told reporters that police has taken into custody around 50 people, including anti-social elements, public as well as workers of BJP, RSS and SDPI.
The officer said that not all of the persons in custody are criminals and that the police was "examing and investigating" the two cases.
