Opposition leader in the Kerala Assembly VD Satheesan on Saturday said the CPI-M has now become a party that trembles under the thumb of criminals like Akash Tillankeri, an accused in the Youth Congress leader Suhaib’s murder.

Speaking to media persons in Kannur, Satheesan said the CPI-M is facing the consequences of hiring the services of criminals in elimination of political opponents. The party is now trembling in front of the criminals.

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Satheesan said Akash Tillankeri is blackmailing the party with Shuhaib’s murder.

CPI-M state secretary MV Govindan said Akash Tillankeri is a criminal. Why then is the party and the government opposing the CBI investigation into Shuhaib’s murder in which he is accused, he asked.

Satheesan said in the Periya and Shuhaib murder cases, the government spent Rs 2 crore 11 lakh from the tax payers’ money to protect the criminals. Criminal gangs which used to eliminate political opponents are now blackmailing the CPI-M, Satheesan added.

The Opposition leader alleged the CPI-M can do the kind of killing that even terrorist organisations can’t do. He said the party is now going through a dangerous phase where criminal gangs are controlling it.

Along with the use of criminals to eliminate political opponents, Satheesan said, evidence is coming out that points to the fact that money was made using Swapna Suresh, prime  accused in the gold smuggling case . It has been alleged that the chief minister is also involved in it. In the remand report given by Enforcement Directorate (ED), it is said that it was the chief minister who asked Sivasankar to arrange a job for Swapna.

Demanding a CBI probe into the conspiracy behind Shuhaib’s murder, Satheesan said there is no point in naming only the quotation gangs in murder cases without  bringing to books the conspirators of the murder.

Akash Thillankeri, an accused in the murder of a Youth Congress leader, recently revealed that he had committed the murder on the orders of the CPI-M leaders of Edayannur.

“Edayannur party leaders made us carry out the murder. If we open our mouths, many of them would not be able to walk in the open. Those who made the call have been given jobs in cooperative bodies. We, who carried out the order, have been pushed into poverty and thrown out of the party,” Akash Thillankeri said in a Facebook post.

“When the party denounced us, we had to turn to gold smuggling for our survival. No one from the party had tried to stop us or correct us. Now, I have lost my patience and have come out in the open so that people know the facts,” he further said in the post.

Akash Tillankeri’s revelation that the killers and those instigated the killing are inside the party has put the Kerala CPI-M on the defensive. This has put the CPI- M in an unprecedented crisis.

Youth Congress leader Shuhaib was killed on 12 February 2018. There are 17 accused in the case including Akash Tillankeri.  Shuhaib’s parents approached the court seeking a CBI probe into the case. But the government opposed the demand.