The police said that the killed activist, E Manoj, was a district level office-bearer of the RSS.
A Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS activist was allegedly hacked to death in Kannur district of Kerala today and another is critically injured and in hospital. A murder case has been registered against six people, all alleged to be workers of Left party CPM, the police said.
The police said the man killed was E Manoj, a district level office-bearer of the RSS. A gang allegedly stopped him on the road, threw a crude bomb at him and then killed him before running away. They attackers are all reportedly absconding.
The RSS is the ideological mentor of the BJP and they have called a 'bandh' or lockdown in Kerala tomorrow.
BJP chief Amit Shah is visiting the state and referenced the incident while talking to party workers in Thiruvananthapuram. "Nearly 250 party workers have been murdered in Kerala's northern region by CPM," he alleged, adding, "we will take this fight to the courts and to the people."
The area is considered politically volatile and was witness to violence involving RSS and CPM workers in the past, but it has been largely calm in the last few years.
Tension resurfaced recently with rival parties accusing each other of poaching workers.
The BJP, which rules at the Centre, has so far not had much of a political base in Kerala, which has traditionally seen the CPM and the Congress in a tussle for power. Amit Shah is surveying the state to build his party's cadre and declared today that the BJP would contest every election hereon.
The BJP has never won a seat in state or national elections in Kerala, but its candidate in capital Thiruvananthapuram almost pulled off an upset coming in a very close number 2 to former union minister Shashi Tharoor in the national elections this year.
State leaders say Mr Shah wants to test waters with local body elections next year before assembly elections in 2016.