Two Youth Congress workers arrested in connection with Kerala student's murder, more people expected to be brought to task

Two Youth Congress workers were arrested on Tuesday in Kerala's Idukki in connection to the murder of an activist affiliated with the Students' Federation of India.

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 Idukki Engineering College. KSU unit secretary Alex Rafel has been taken into custody as well. Idukki SP R Karuppasamy told the media that except for Rafel, others are not students of the college and the police are trying to ascertain why they were present on the college campus with a knife.

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According to news agency PTI, two students, Abjijith and Amal, were also seriously injured in the attack. "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," Karuppasamy said. 

The FIR mentions 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 that 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 Dheeraj's house, he will be cremated there and a monument will be erected. The procession carrying the body of the SFI activist is expected to reach Kannur this evening. 

Meanwhile, 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.