Kerala: BJP worker hacked to death in Kannur, party accuses CPI(M)

A BJP worker was hacked to death in Kerala's Kannur on Wednesday. BJP alleges that CPI(M) is behind the murder and has called for a 'hartal' in the city.

52-year old Mullapram Ezhuthan Santhosh was murdered when he was alone in his house.  The police have taken some persons into custody and questioning them. They have called it a political murder.

Further details are awaited.

There has been ongoing tension between the two parties and its workers in Kannur district. On Tuesday, BJP leader and Lok Sabha MP Nalin Kumar Kateel warned the CPI(M) that the Centre would intervene if BJP workers continued to be physically targeted in left-ruled Kerala and would face retaliation in other parts of the country as well.

"They (CPI-M) will come to know about the strength of the BJP in other parts of the country if they did not stop violence against the BJP workers in Kerala," Kateel said, addressing a meeting of the BJP Kerala state committee here. 

Kateel, an MP from Karnataka, also said the Centre would intervene if BJP workers continued to be physically targeted in the state. He alleged that the CPI(M)-ruled state was now known for political killings while other states in the country focused on development and economic growth.

On Monday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had said that the most befitting reply to 'those' who try to suppress freedom of expression is to "express all creativity much stronger and louder." Without naming RSS-BJP, he said a number of people ranging from late M F Hussain and Narendra Dabholkar to Ghulam Ali and Perumal Murugan were among the victims of the threat.

With agency inputs.