Alappuzha: The stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, aka UAPA, 2008, will be invoked against all the accused arrested over the tit-for-tat political murders of KS Shan and Ranjith Sreenivas that had shook Kerala exactly a year ago.
Those arrested are members of the Rashtriya Seva Samiti (RSS), Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and Popular Front of India (PFI), police said on Monday. The chargesheets filed in March, 2022 pointed out that the two murders had taken place because of political rivalry. There were 12 accused in Ranjith's muder case and 21, in Shan's.
The police have also requested legal advice from the Director General of Prosecution in the matter and he will respond after the case diary is readied.
As per police findings, Social Democratic Party of India leader KS Shan was killed to avenge the murder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activist.
Alappuzha was rocked last December with the back-to-back killings of Shan and Ranjith. Police had to clamp prohibitory orders under CrPC Section 144. Additional police force was deployed there and senior officers camped there to monitor the law and order situation.
Shan was brutally attacked on December 17, 2021 night while he was on his way back home. A car rammed his bike and as he fell down, the assailants inflicted around 40 injuries on him leading to his death, police had said. Shan succumbed to his injuries at a Kochi hospital around midnight. Ranjith Sreenivas, who was the state secretary of the BJP's OBC Morcha. was hacked to death by some assailants who barged into his house the next day morning.
Shan was the state secretary of the SDPI, the political arm of the now-banned Islamic organisation Popular Front of India.
