Two CPI-M officials held for RMP leader's murder

The Special Investigation Team probing the murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party leader T P Chandrasekharan arrested two Communist Party of India-Marxist functionaries on Thursday on the charge of helping the assailants, police said.

The two arrested are C H Asokhan, Onchiyam CPI-M area committee secretary and K K Krishnan, Local Committee member, they said.

The duo were later produced before the Vatakara Judicial First Class Magistrate court, which remanded them to 14 days police custody. Police had a tough time in controlling a large crowd which had assembled at the court venue, despite the dawn-to- dusk hartal called by LDF and BJP against the petrol price hike in force.

CPI-M activists later took out a rally in Vatakara, protesting against the arrest of the two functionaries. On Wednesday, the SIT had arrested from Mysore one of the gang members who allegedly hacked Chandrasekharan to death. He was an accomplice of N K Sunil Kumar, the prime accused in the case.

The arrest of the two CPI-M functionaries by SIT takes the number of those held in the case to 14. Chandrasekharan, 50, a former CPI-M leader in the party stronghold Onjiyam in Kozhikode district, was murdered at Vallikkad near Vatakara on May 4.

The assailants who came by a car attacked him while he was riding a motorcycle alone. Country-made bombs were hurled at him before he was hacked to death with sharp weapons.

Chandrasekharan was expelled a few years ago after falling out with the leadership. He later joined RMP floated by CPI-M activists who either quit the party over ideological issues or were expelled for anti-party activities.