A Recount of the Last Moments
On the night of September 23, 1972 Com. Azhikodan was hacked to death by the members of an extremist group who hired by the then ruling party.
The last moments of Com: Azhikodan have been reconstructed from the words of eyewitnesses as follows by Babu Bharadvaj:
Com:Azhikodan got down from bus in Trissur town at 9.50p.m Trissur town usually went to sleep only by midnight. He was walking along the right side of the crowded post office road. The gruesome murder must have been witnessed by some in the nearby shops and taxi stand.
The enemies lurking in the dark pounced upon him when he reached near the plantain shop of one Abdul Rahman and stabbed him. The comrade who was mortally wounded bent forward and picked up his handbag which had fallen. He staggered some ten steps forward. His clothes were drenched in blood. He could not walk any further. He stood leaning against an electric post. He held his bag tucked in between his thighs in. The tube light showered its light on him. Nobody dared to go near him. Slowly his hold on the post slackened and he fell on the ground and breathed his last. The entire scene was mutely watched over by a policeman standing at a distance. The lifeless body of the comrade lay on the road even after midnight. Curiously enough his bag and other belongings were hurriedly taken into custody by the police.
The next day was a rainy day. The dead body was taken to his native place, Kannur. Thousands of people flowed into Kannur to him homage. When his lifeless body reached the two-roomed rented house where his nonagenarian mother, wife and five children lived, it was a heart-rending scene.
He was cremated in the public graveyard of Payyambalam beach beside the tomb of the great freedom fighter journalist Swadeshabhimani K.Ramakrishana Pillai. Com: Azhikodan Raghavan was a true representative of the proletariat. He was born into proletarian class, lived and struggled with them, and became then undisputed leader.