2 Youth Congress workers held in SFI activist murder case

Two Youth Congress workers were arrested on Tuesday in connection with the murder of an SFI activist at the Idukki Engineering College here.

Nikhil Paily, a district level leader of the Youth Congress and Jerin Jijo were arrested for allegedly stabbing to death Dheeraj Rajendran (21), a student at the college. KSU unit secretary Alex Rafel has been taken into custody in the case.

Idukki SP R Karuppasamy told the media that except Rafel, others are not students of the college and the police are trying to ascertain why they reached the campus with a knife. "We need to take more people into custody in order to look into the conspiracy angle behind the crime. The first two accused are not students of the college. We need to find out why they reached there with weapons," the senior police official said.

Two students, Abjijith and Amal, were also seriously injured in the attack. In the FIR, the police have mentioned that the murder took place due to political rivalry.

The ruling CPI(M) had alleged that the murder was pre-planned and claimed that 21 Left workers were killed in the state in the last six years. State Congress Chief K Sudhakaran today said his party will never support any sort of violence.

Hundreds of students and senior Left party leaders, including MLAs, gathered at the Idukki Medical college and received the body of Dheeraj after postmortem.

The CPI(M) has purchased land adjacent to the house of Dheeraj, where it said the student activist will be cremated and a monument will be erected.

The procession carrying the body of the SFI activist is expected to reach Kannur this evening.

Meanwhile, the Congress demanded action over violence against their party offices across the state. The Congress alleged that the protesting SFI and DYFI activists destroyed flag posts of the party and its student outfit KSU in many places including Pathanamthitta, Kollam and Idukki.

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