News Analysis |
In a raid conducted at an office of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala’s Kannur district, the police have recovered a huge cache of weapons from the spot. The police have seized swords, iron rods, and other sharp weapons from the BJP office. According to some reports, three steel bombs were also recovered. The raids were conducted after a tip-off from the local residents living in the area around the office.
The search operation was carried out based on the information given by municipality cleaning staff who were cleaning the bushes. The investigation is underway to track the owners of these weapons. Responding to the serious allegation, BJP district president Sathyaprakash said that BJP has no role in the incident.
A 27-year-old BJP worker was killed when the bomb being made by him exploded. Kerala is a Southern Indian state which is renowned throughout India for its prosperity has long been a target of the RSS
The district BJP president P. Sathyaprakash said that the weapons could have been planted to malign the party. “There is no need for the BJP to keep those weapons at its district committee office,” he said.
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The seizure of the weapons comes in the wake of a two-week rally initiated by BJP president Amit Shah on October 3. On the third day, BJP former state president and senior leader V Muraleedharan did a Facebook live of the Yathra which apparently showed their cadres shouting provocative slogans against CPIM leaders and threatening to attack them.
Following this on October 8, a day after the Yathra left Kannur, a CPIM rally came under attack in Panoor area. Five CPIM workers and four policemen were attacked with country-made bombs and stones at the rally. Nine BJP workers have been arrested in connection with the attack. BJP national leadership came down to Kerala with the Jan Raksha Yathra making serious allegations against the ruling Left Front. They accused the CPIM of inciting violence in the state.
The worst affected district is Kannur followed by Malapurram. At least a 100, mostly RSS/BJP cadres, have been reported dead since the resurgence of violence in 2008
The Kannur district has seen renewed fighting between the cadres of the BJP and the local ruling CPI(M) since the rise of Narendar Modi. A low-intensity war has been raging in the Indian state of Kerala for more than 4 decades. The conflict initiated during the 1971 RSS driven communal riots when the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) intervened to protect Muslims.
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The conflict has been termed as a “blood feud” or “Political Killings” by the media and has been characterized by clashes, brutal killings mostly by edged weapons and homemade bomb attacks. The Indian National Congress too was a participant in this war against both sides from the late 1980s till 2008.
The worst affected district is Kannur followed by Malapurram. At least a 100, mostly RSS/BJP cadres, have been reported dead since the resurgence of violence in 2008. Frequent raids by Law Enforcement have often recovered weapon caches around buildings utilized by the RSS and its cohorts.
The conflict has been termed as a “blood feud” or “Political Killings” by the media and has been characterized by clashes, brutal killings mostly by edged weapons and homemade bomb attacks
In August 2016, Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran stated on a Facebook post that he was receiving several complaints every day about organizations like the RSS misusing temple by making it a hub of illegal activities. The Devaswom minister also alleged that the RSS was trying to push believers away from temples and was making the temple a storage for weapons where people were being trained how to use a weapon.
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A day after the minister’s statement, a 27-year-old BJP worker was killed when the bomb being made by him exploded. Kerala is a Southern Indian state which is renowned throughout India for its prosperity has long been a target of the RSS. The conflict is being driven by factors such as RSS attempts to inculcate Hindutva in the mostly secular Keralan environment whose prevalent form of Hinduism differs from that of Hindutva dominated North India as well as vengeance and political ambitions.