THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: State Congress president K Sudhakaran on Saturday raised a strong defence for Youth Congress leader Nikhil Pylee who was arrested by the Idukki police on charges of murdering engineering student and SFI activist Dheeraj Rajendran last week. Sudhakaran said nobody has seen who had stabbed Dheeraj and Nikhil was actually trying to run away from a violent SFI mob.
“It was SFI students who were with Dheeraj who said they hadn’t seen who had stabbed Dheeraj. One of them told Kairali TV that Dheeraj fell after being punched by someone. Nikhil became an accused as he was on the spot at the time of the incident,” Sudhakaran said while addressing a meet the press programme at the Trivandrum Press Club.
He also said the party would provide legal aid to the arrested workers if they are innocent. “The five others who were arrested along with Nikhil were not at the spot when the incident occurred. One of them was going home in a police jeep and two others were at a place seven km away from Painavu,” he said.
According to Sudhakaran, a 40-member gang of SFI workers threatened the small group of Youth Congress workers standing outside the gate of the college on the college election day. “They were chased away. Nikhil Pylee was chased away for 350 metres. He was trying to escape from an angry mob. It is also not sure whether he had stabbed in self-defence. How can the responsibility for the murder fall on KSU or Congress?
Reacting to allegations that he hadn’t condemned the murder, Sudhakaran said he told reporters the next day at Kollam that he had shared the grief of the family. “Dheeraj came from a Congress family. I wanted to go and meet his parents. But, I can’t as if I go there, CPM will create trouble for them,” he said. “I agree that such a situation should have been avoided. He was the hope of the family,” he added.
“There had been several murders in the past. Have you seen any political party celebrating a murder like this? What is there to be happy about? They got a martyr and they are happy,” he said.