Unless the police are able to douse passions and force some kind of order back into the area soon, the communal violence in Kasargod, Kerala’s northern district abutting Karnataka, may well get out of hand. Killers on either side of the communal divide are now targeting high-visibility quarries and not settling for soft targets in retaliatory strikes.

If young local lawyer and BMS district vice president P. Suhas who was killed on Thursday was an important Sangh Parivar man in the area, C.M. Mohammad Kunhi Haji who was stabbed to death on Friday in apparent retaliation was the president of the local Adakatabail Bilal Masjid Committee.

It might appear incredible that the latest violence—that has claimed the lives of four men in the last five days—was sparked off by something as innocuous as someone choosing to urinate not far from a local mosque. But in Kasargod, always on a short communal fuse, lesser provocations can get the knives out.

Kasargod, which is part of the Canara belt, is one of the rare areas in Kerala where the Sangh Parivar has always had considerable clout. But several fundamentalist Islamic outfits too thrive in this district with a substantial Muslim population, including several that have been enforcing a Taliban-type social order in localities where they hold sway.

This is perhaps one of the few places in the country that would religiously log out of life-without anyone even calling for a hartal—every December 6 when the Babri Masjid anniversary arrives. The town saw eight deaths in the communal violence that followed the day after the Babri demolition. Kasargod is also where long-distance buses have often been attacked and damaged for exhibiting pictures of gods inside them.

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