tiruvarur tension prevailed in needamangalam in tiruvarur district as a 50yearold functionary of the cpi was hacked to death by an unidentified gang on wednesday police identified the deceased as nadesa thamizharvan a native of olimathi villageinspectorgeneral of central zone v balakrishnan and several higher officials visited the spot and conducted an inquiry a large police force has been deployed in the areanadesa thamizharvan was the union secretary of the party at needamangalam for the last 10 years he was standing near the town panchayat office at needamangalam when a gang arrived there and attacked him with sharp weapons and fled he died on the spot police sources saidon hearing the news a large number of party functionaries and cadres gathered at needamangalam bazaar and blocked the road condemning the attack they demanded police to arrest the culprits immediately a police team led by tiruvarur superintendent of police c vijayakumar rushed to the spot and held talks with the protesters however they did not allow police to move the body to the hospital for postmortem police pacified them and later took the body to the medical college hospital in thanjavur as tension escalated around 200 police personnel were posted in and around the area to avert any untoward incidentsan active functionary of the party thamizharvan had fought for the cause of farmers and labourers and won in his struggle in needamangalam apart from several political cases various criminal cases were also pending against him police sources said he is survived by his wife and two sonsthanjavur deputy inspectorgeneral of police pravesh kumar said we have identified the suspects with the help of cctv footage the victims accomplices also have given a few names sp c vijayakumar has formed five special teams to apprehend the suspects inquiries revealed that one of the key suspects was earlier with the party and recently shifted his allegiance to another party