By IANS
Pune : Activists of a local organisation Hindu Garjana Wednesday attacked the office of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) here, injuring three party workers and damaging some vehicles parked in its premises.
Armed with wooden sticks, about 15 to 20 Hindu Garjana activists attacked the CPI-M office in Narayanpeth denouncing the party for the killing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) workers in Kerala’s Kannur district last month.
Hindu Garjana chief Dhiraj Ghate, who led the attack, told media persons that he was also a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker and that the CPI-M would face similar retaliatory attacks elsewhere.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajendra Sonawane said it appeared from the slogan shouting by the assaulters that they were BJP workers.
Sonawane said CPI-M office secretary Ajit Abhyankar had intimated the police in the morning about some suspicious looking persons reconnoitring the party office and said action would be taken after registering the statement of the injured CPI-M workers, who are in hospital.
BJP state unit president Nitin Gadkari told IANS that he would refrain from making any comment till he had details of the incident. Another party leader Prakash Jawdekar parried a query about BJP’s involvement in the attack, saying: “Let’s try to tone down the severity of such incidents”.
The RSS local unit held a public meeting in the city Monday protesting the killing of five RSS workers and maiming of 12 others in a series of attacks by CPI-M cadres in Kannur.
During a similar rally in Aurangabad the same day, RSS and BJP workers burnt a Communist Party of India (CPI) flag, saying CPI and CPI-M were virtually the same.