Attack on CPI-M office premeditated: Karat

NEW DELHI:  Pointing an accusing finger at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat said the attack on his party's office here Sunday was premeditated.

"There were no bricks or stones around the party office. From where did all these things come? It shows that the attack was premeditated. All political parties must condemn the attack," Karat said at the party office, the A.K. Gopalan Bhawan, here.

Karat added that the BJP and the RSS should introspect after all that has happened.

"There has been a problem in Kerala for quite some time, but this is not the justification for what happened here Sunday," Karat said.

He was referring to clashes between workers of the CPI-M and the BJP in Kerala's Kannur district that went on for four days and left seven people dead last week.

A group of activists, allegedly from the BJP and the RSS, threw stones at the A.K. Gopalan Bhawan in the afternoon when a CPI-M central committee meeting was on.

The agitators were protesting CPI-M workers' alleged attacks on BJP-RSS activists in Kannur.

CPI-M politburo member and Rajya Sabha MP Sitaram Yechury told reporters outside the party office that Jagdish Mukhi, a BJP legislator and Leader of Opposition in the Delhi assembly, and Delhi mayor Arti Mehra led the attacking mob.

"Mukhi and Arti Mehra were leading the mob," Yechury said.