Over 13,000 people have been arrested across Kerala between December 18 last year to January 9, 2022, the state police said on Tuesday. The arrests are the result of a statewide crackdown by the police on anti-social elements, a release by the State Police Media Centre said.

The statewide crackdown has come in the wake of several instances of violent killings in Kerala, including the back-to-back murders of an SDPI and a BJP leader in Alappuzha district within hours of each other in early December last year.

KS Shan, the state secretary of the SDPI in Kerala, was brutally attacked on December 18 at Mannancherry in the district while he was on his way home and his party accused the RSS of being behind the attack. The SDPI leader was on his way home when a car crashed into his bike and as he fell down, the assailants assaulted him leading to his death, police said. Shan succumbed to his injuries at a Kochi hospital around midnight, police added.

Hours later, BJP's OBC Morcha state secretary Ranjit Sreenivas was hacked to death in his home by unknown assailants who barged into his house on December 19, police said. Police said it suspects the fatal attack on Ranjith, also a member of the BJP state committee, was in retaliation to the killing of Shan.

In the wake of the killings, State Police Chief Anil Kant had ordered strict action against anti-social elements in Kerala. So far, 13,032 people have been arrested in the statewide raids at 16,680 locations and 5,987 mobile phones have been seized, the release said.

Besides that, cases have been registered against 215 persons under the Kerala Anti Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 2007, it said and added that steps were also taken to cancel the bail of 61 persons who had violated the bail conditions.

The highest number were arrested in Thiruvananthapuram Rural (1,506) followed by Alappuzha (1,322), Kollam City (1,054), Palakkad (1,023) and Kasaragod (1,020), the release said.

The highest number of mobile phones seized was also from Thiruvananthapuram Rural with 1,103, it said.

With PTI inputs