Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday will visit the house of RSS cadre E Rajesh, who was hacked to death by a gang near Thiruvananthapuram last week.
His visit to Kerala comes in the backdrop of allegations by the RSS and the BJP that attacks on their workers are on the rise in the state.
In response to Jaitley’s planned visit, Panchayat President of Eranholi in Kannur, AK Ramya, whose husband, Sreejan Babu, was admitted in a hospital following an alleged attack by RSS workers, wrote an open letter to the Union Minister, asking if he would also visit them.
In the letter, Ramya points out that her husband has not even been able to get up from his bed for the last 33 days and he cannot look after the family hereafter. She requests Jaitley to visit them also, while visiting the house of the RSS worker.
Sreejan, who was an auto driver, was hacked by RSS goons on July 3, and bore the brunt of 2 severe wounds and 22 minor wounds, the letter claims.
“The attackers abandoned him on the road, thinking that he was dead. Since locals took him to the hospital on time, he got his life back. In the first two days in Kozhikode Baby Memorial hospital, he had to undergo 26 hours of surgery. To fix other body parts where he was stabbed, four other surgeries had to be done. Though he is back to life, he might not be able to go for work,” the letter reads.
“What did we do, to receive this? Your party workers tried to kill the father of a 11-year-old. Sreejan was not an accused in any case. He was a social worker who helped everyone, irrespective of party. Sreejan was hacked when the situation was peaceful here. I have heard that you plan to visit a murdered RSS worker's house in Kerala. Will you visit Sreejan who is In Kozhikode Baby Memorial hospital at room number 7434?” the letter asks.
BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi had raised the issue of attack against BJP workers in Parliament recently, which sparked off a huge campaign across Kerala over the increasing attacks on RSS and BJP workers in the state.
But crime records from the Kerala Police, accessed by NDTV, recently revealed that the number of murdered CPI(M) cadres outnumber the RSS workers, who were murdered. However, it is unclear who the attackers were in all cases and whether the rivalry was primarily only between these two factions.
The report states that 85 CPM workers, 65 RSS/BJP workers and 11 workers of Congress and IUML each, have been killed in the last 17 years, mostly by their political rivals.