It is Palakkad’s turn to settle scores  

After Alappuzha, it is the turn of Palakkad to bear witness to tit-for-tat killings with communal overtones. Abdul Latheef Naha reports on the endless cycle of violence as cadres of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Social Democratic Party of India are locked in a brutal fight to the finish

It was with renewed hope that Palakkad district celebrated Vishu on April 15, shaking off the worries that had plagued its people for the last two years following the COVID-19 pandemic, dampening spirits and taking the joy out of the Malayalam New Year’s day festival. As restrictions gave way to festivities, music and the aroma of food filled the air. Then came the news of a murder and everything came to a standstill as it were, stopping people in their tracks. This was followed by another murder, a gruesome tit for tat.

A Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) worker, A. Subair, 44, was hacked to death allegedly by a gang of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) men while he was heading home after attending ‘jummah’ prayers at Elappully village. He was murdered in front of his father Aboobacker.

While Subair’s body was being taken home after post-mortem at the Palakkad General Hospital on Saturday, a gang of alleged SDPI men barged into the auto shop of a 45-year-old RSS worker A. Sreenivasan at Melamuri, some 20 km away from Elappully, and murdered him brutally. The back-to-back murders in less than 24 hours left the two families devastated as both lost their primary breadwinners. As communal tension prevailed, Palakkad sunk into gloom. “I still can’t believe my eyes. What have I done to see my son being slaughtered in front of my eyes,” sobbed Subair’s father Aboobacker as his widowed daughter-in-law Zeenath lay in her bed inside their house at Elappully. Zeenath, wearing her white prayer dress, remained inside the house as her children, Shuhaib, Sahad and Sajad — all of them in school — came out to greet those who had arrived to console them. Subair, popular in the neighbourhood, ran a small restaurant adjoining his house. It remained closed as the burial took place at the Elappully Juma Masjid graveyard on Saturday.

Sitting inside Subair’s tiny restaurant, his mother Nafeesa is reciting the Koran. The entry to the murdered man’s house is through the restaurant he managed.From the house, she could watch the spot on the Pollachi-Palakkad highway where her son was felled and butchered. It was only 200 metres away from the house.

At Melamuri in Palakkad town, Sreenivasan’s widow Gopika is inconsolable. A teacher of Karnakiyamman Higher Secondary School at Moothanthara, Gopika and Sreenivasan adored their daughter Navaneeta, a student of Class 7. She is still in shock.

A former physical trainer of the RSS, Sreenivasan, people say, was friendly and helpful. He played an active role in different organisations such as Karnaki Seva Sangham, Pranavam Art and Culture Forum, Seva Bharati, and Vegetable Traders Forum. “We never imagined such a tragedy would strike my family,” says Mohanan, Sreenivasan’s father-in-law.

Though Sreenivasan had planned to go to Palani along with his friends on Saturday, he cancelled the trip at the last minute as he expected several friends and relatives to arrive for a temple festival at Pallippuram village. “We never knew he would leave us in such a manner. When I called him at 11.30 a.m., he talked to me so cheerfully. In about three hours, we saw him dead,” says Saravanan, a friend.