Enraged activists of CPI(M) today attacked a private Tamil Satellite Channel which claimed that the missing Marxist leader W R Varadarajan, who had presumably committed suicide, had in fact been murdered.

The Channel owned by the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), in its news bulletin since last night, quoted the post mortem report and said the veteran CPI(M) leader, who went missing on February 11, was strangulated to death.

To substantiate its claim, the channel said the strangulation marks on the either side of the neck suggested that Varadarajan was strangulated to death and his body was thrown into a lake.

Taking objections to the report, CPI(M) workers, carrying party flags, picketed the Channel office, staged an agitation and pelted stones, damaging the window panes.

Not to be outdone, a PMK Ward Councillor, along with his supporters attacked the CPI(M) State Office at Vaidhyaraman street in T Nagar and damaged the window panes.

A highly decomposed body was recovered from a lake on February 13 and was kept in the mortuary of the Government Hospital. Later it was identified as that of Varadarajan by his family members and the Party leaders and the body was cremated on February 20.