New Delhi: Senior RSS leader Dattatreya Hosabale on Friday alleged that there is a connection between CPM cadres and Islamic jihadists in south India.
“There is definitely some nexus between jihadi terrorists operating in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala and the CPM cadres,” the RSS Sahsarkaryavah said at a press conference on the killings of Swayamsevaks in the state. There is a high recruitment of Islamic State members from Left-ruled Kerala confirms the link between the two, he further claimed, as per the Indian Express.
Pointing out that the NIA “arrested jihadi terrorists” from a “party (CPM) village” in Kerala, he asked: “No one can reach a party village. How did jihadi terrorists reach there and make their hideout?”
Hosabale was accompanied by Senior RSS Pracharak J Nandakumar and other leaders at a press meet, indicating that the Sangh would now field its top leaders to highlight the violence against its workers in Kerala. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh recently called Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and expressed concern about the violence.
Meanwhile, CPM general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Sitaram Yechury had said he was ready to talk to RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat over the continuing violence in Kerala. “We welcome it (the proposal),” Hosabale said, but quickly added that “we have some apprehensions”.
While throwing light on the history of attacks on swayamsevaks in Kerala, Hosabale claimed that since the “first murder” in 1969, “around 300 swayamsevaks were murdered by CPM cadres”. As many as 14 have been killed in the past 13 months, he said, demanding “an inquiry under HC or SC or any central agency”.
At the press meet, he first denied that RSS workers had killed any CPM cadre, but later admitted that “there may be some retaliation. But these are retaliations…. It is not planned.” He then added, “we are not defending any violence, even by our workers.”
He also clarified that “it is not a fight between the RSS and the CPM. The CPM has also killed Congress workers.”