Kerala political murders: All party peace meeting postponed

KOTTAYAM: The all-party peace meeting scheduled to be held in

Alappuzha

on Monday evening in the wake of the two political murders was postponed to Tuesday.

The meeting will be held in the district collectorate at 4pm on Tuesday. The meeting was postponed after the district BJP leaders informed the collector A Alexander that they will not participate in the meeting as the timing coincides with the funeral of Ranjith Sreenivasan.

Originally the meeting was scheduled to be held at 3pm on Monday. The district collector on Monday morning decided to change the timing of the meeting to 5pm. However, the BJP district leaders maintained that the dead was dishonoured by delaying the autopsy and said that they would be boycotting the peace meeting. The leaders also said that the BJP is not against the all-party meet intended to maintain peace in the region. A little later, the district collector decided to postpone the meeting to Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters on Monday morning, BJP state president K Surendran had said that the peace meeting could be held on Monday night after the funeral of Ranjith or in the coming days.

Surendran reiterated that the government is continuing its intolerance towards the BJP. Though the BJP is not against the efforts to restore peace in the region it is hard to bear the insult towards the dead body of Ranjith. The government as well as the Police are ignoring it. At the same time all considerations are being given to the SDPI and other

extremist forces

, he had said.