Kerala: Political Killings Decline in Kannur After Decades

The CPM –RSS/BJP have been engaged in a bloody battle in the Marxist bastion of Kannur for the past several decades. The political killings have come down significantly in the district.

A few years ago the RSS organized protest meetings across the country targeting Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and accusing him of being the mastermind of political murders. The chief minister faced angry protests in Delhi, Hyderabad, Mangalore and Bhopal. During one of these protests, RSS pramukh of Ujjain Dr Kundan Chandravat even offered a bounty of Rs 1 crore to anyone who beheaded Pinarayi Vijayan. Chandravat was later removed from the organisation.

In October 2017 the then BJP national president Amit Shah came down to Kerala and led a protest march against CPM in Thiruvananthapuram.

Notwithstanding the allegations against CPM, the facts on the ground indicate that the Marxists are also at the receiving end of political violence. The CPM has lost more workers in violence compared to other parties.

Police records suggest that of the 172 murders that took place in Kerala between 2000 and 2016 period, 85 CPM workers and 65 RSS/BJP workers lost their lives. Eleven workers each of Congress and the Muslim League also became victims of political violence in the state.

According to rough estimates, over 240 persons belonging to different parties have become victims of killer politics in Kerala since 2000. Though the frequency of political murders has come down compared to previous years, the brutal killings taking place after a lull often remind one that the savagery has not ended yet.