Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Police is on the alert as the district of Alappuzha is on the edge following the gruesome murders of two political functionaries from two right-wing entities that champion the cause of two communities. Prohibitory orders by police are in place after the back-to-back killings in less than 12 hours since the Saturday evening — the first of a Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) activist and the second of the state secretary of the BJP’s Other Backward Classes outfit, OBC Morcha.
The Intelligence wing of the Kerala Police Department had warned the State Government many times in the last three months about an explosive situation in some strongholds of various organisations where political rivalry has assumed a communal tone.
The Intelligence reports had sounded that there were high chances of tension between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — BJP's ideological patron — and the SDPI in the districts of Palakkad, Thrissur, Kannur, Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram.
Though the police took some precautionary measures, it could not do much. It remained a mute spectator in front of the meticulous planning of murders by the armed groups belonging to both organisations.
The police Intelligence wing usually compiles and hands over to the State Government inputs about the law and order situation in each district and the names of those leaders and workers who have a threat to life. But what the police do is to merely inform the leaders of this threat perception. No concrete follow-up steps are being taken to avoid untoward incidents.
The police's inference from the two murders in Alappuzha on Sunday is that both the groups had done spade work earlier itself to kill the rival leaders. They collected information in advance and made meticulous planning to execute the murders. The two Alappuzha-based leaders, who were killed the other day, do not figure in the list of leaders, who have a threat to life, prepared by the police.
There are also allegations from within the force that had the police taken effective precautionary measures on time, the chances of second murder — of Ranjith Sreenivas — could have been averted. Ranjith, the state secretary of OBC Morcha, was hacked to death on Sunday morning hours after the murder of KS Shan, an SDPI state secretary late on Saturday night.
But the police did not anticipate such a sudden counterattack. The police are used to the scenario where the members of an organisation carry out attacks on the houses and establishments of the rival party leaders and workers after the murder of their party workers. But going beyond the calculation of the police, the second murder in Alappuzha was carried out within hours after the first murder.
The planning for both the murders in Alappuzha had a pattern. The organisation that committed the murder did it in the stronghold of the rival party. The murder was deliberately done by that particular organisation to show its presence in an area where they are politically weak.
