Alappuzha: The coastal Alappuzha district in Kerala is tense following Sunday's tit-for-tat murders of political activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Social Democratic Party of India.
Vinodini, the mother of Ranjith Sreenivas, the state secretary of the BJP’s Other Backward Classes outfit, OBC Morcha, who was hacked to death on Sunday, revealed chilling details about the murder.
“On returning home, I was climbing the stairs to the upper floor when I heard somebody kicking the gate open. A group of people carrying weapons such as machetes and a hammer barged in," Vinodini recalled.
Early that day, Vinodini had visited a temple and made an offering of ‘pushpanjali’ in the name of Ranjith.
The gang then forced its way into the house through the main door and smashed the tea-poy in the drawing-room with the hammer. Hearing a thud, Ranjith who was sleeping in his bedroom woke up and came to the dining hall.
“An assailant carrying the hammer hit Ranjith on the head and when he collapsed on the floor, the gang removed the ‘mundu’ he was wearing and began hacking him,” Vinodini narrated with fear writ large on her face.
Even though she rushed into the hall screaming and tried to protect her son, the gang shoved her to a side. “Meanwhile, Ranjith’s wife Lisha ran out of the kitchen and into the dining hall but she too was pushed to the floor by the assailants. Ranjith’s younger daughter Hridya also reached the place shouting ‘Father…’, but when a gang member made a swipe at her with a machete, she retreated to her room in fear,” Vinodini added.
During this time, Vinodini was lying on the floor. A gang member pressed a chair against her face, pinning her head on the floor and placed a knife on her neck. “He threatened to slit my throat,” the grieving mother said.
While Vinodini was pinned down by one assailant, the others were hacking repeatedly at Ranjith right in front of her.
Vinodini (71), who retired from the Kerala Health Services as a superintendent, has no clue why her son was killed in a brutal manner. “Ranjith was a very soft-spoken person. Then why did they kill him in such a way?” She wondered.
When Ranjith was being attacked on the ground floor, his younger brother Abhijith was sleeping on the upper floor. “Abhijith had returned home after visiting the Sabarimala temple the other day and was in deep sleep. He didn’t initially hear my shouts, but when he later woke up and rushed downstairs, the gang had fled after attacking Ranjith,” Vinodini said.
The main door of the house was opened at 6.15 am that day when Ranjith’s elder daughter Bhagya went to attend a tuition class. Afterwards, the door was not locked, which gave easy access for the gang into the house, she further said.
Incidentally, Vinodini had noticed two strangers near their house around 10 pm on Saturday. “When I questioned them, they evaded me and left.”
Ranjith often goes for morning walks. However, as it was a Sunday, he had decided to take the walk after reading the newspaper, Vinodini continued.
Abhijith said when he heard his mother’s screams and rushed to the room where Ranjith was attacked, he saw his brother lying in a pool of blood. “Some neighbours also reached there noticing the commotion but they withdrew seeing the blood. The ambulance finally arrived after we alerted the police control room,” he stated.
Even then, most of the neighbours were hesitant to aid the family. “Only one boy living in a house on the south side of ours helped shift Ranjith to the ambulance. My brother’s legs were almost completely chopped off and were hanging when he was taken to the Medical College Hospital,” Abhijith, an IT employee in Bengaluru, narrated.
