'God's forsaken country': BJP MPs raise Kerala political killings in Lok Sabha

From God's Own Country, Kerala has transformed into the 'God's forsaken country', a BJP MP said in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, coming down hard on the LDF government in the state for failing to contain the killing of a RSS worker Rajesh last week. 

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Meenakshi Lekhi alleged that the political opponents were being killed in "Talibani style" in the state, and even workers of Congress, CPI and Muslim League have been targetted. 

Another BJP MP Prahlad Joshi said 17 BJP and RSS workers were killed in Kerala in the last 17 months and demanded a probe into the deaths by either the CBI or the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Joshi alleged that terrorists were involved in the killings. 

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In a hard-hitting attack on the LDF, she also alleged that seven children from the families of RSS and BJP workers were targeted. The comments by Joshi and Lekhi drew sharp reaction from the MPs of the Left parties who countered them vociferously. 

Lekhi, the BJP MP from New Delhi constituency, said that the God's Own Country has transformed into "God's forsaken country". She also read out names of 14 BJP and RSS workers who were allegedly killed in Kerala in the last few months and wondered whether anyone in the House knew their names. 

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"People will immediately connect if someone talks about about Pehlu Khan or Akhlaq. But nobody knows about the people killed in Kerala," PTI quoted Lekhi as saying. 

"Rajesh had received 80 wounds. His hands were chopped off. People are being killed in a Talibani style. A total of 40 Congress workers were alone killed in Kannur," she claimed, wondering why Congress was maintaining silence over killing of their workers. 

Joshi alleged that maximum murders had taken place in the area from Kannur, where Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan hails. Talking about communist rule in various parts of the world, he claimed that "more than one million people were killed" during the period.