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8 arrests after brutal murder of Indian politician

Eight people were arrested in India on Saturday over the murder of a politician who campaigned for the rights of lower caste Indians, police said.

K. Armstrong, the national president of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), was hacked to death with machetes and sickles near his house in the southern city of Chennai on Friday evening.

Six men on motorcycles…

Eight people were arrested in India on Saturday over the murder of a politician who campaigned for the rights of lower caste Indians, police said.

K. Armstrong, the national president of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), was hacked to death with machetes and sickles near his home in the southern city of Chennai on Friday evening.

Six men on motorcycles attacked Armstrong as he was “talking to friends and supporters” near his home in the capital of Tamil Nadu state, the Indian Express newspaper reported.

The men reportedly escaped before anyone could intervene.

Several of Armstrong’s supporters took to the streets later that evening to protest his killing and demand justice.

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Asra Garg, a senior Chennai police officer, said eight suspects were being questioned after a “preliminary investigation”.

Mayawati, the national chairperson of Armstrong’s BSP, who goes by one name, said the attack was “highly regrettable and reprehensible”.

“The state government must punish the guilty,” she said in a post on the social media platform X.

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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin also asked the police to complete the investigation quickly.

“Armstrong’s assassination is shocking and deeply saddening,” he said.

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