The CBI on Thursday named P Jayarajan, CPI(M)’s district secretary in Kannur, Kerala, as the principal conspirator behind the brutal murder of RSS leader Manoj Elanthodath in Kathiroor near Thalassery three years ago. In the supplementary chargesheet it filed in the Manoj murder case in a special court, the probe agency slapped over 15 serious charges, including those under provisions of the UAPA, on the Marxist leader.
Jayarajan, chief of the strongest CPI(M) district committee in the country, is the 25th accused in the Manoj murder case which has a total of 25 accused, including first accused Vikraman, the Marxist leader’s driver and close aide, and TA Madhusoodanan, CPI(M)’s former area secretary in Payyannur, Kannur. The other accused also are CPI(M)’s activists or sympathisers.
According to the CBI, Jayarajan had entered into a conspiracy with first accused Vikraman to murder Manoj in order to take revenge and used him as a tool to execute his killing by engaging professional killers. The CBI described it as a brutal terrorist act and a well-conspired, well-planned and well-organised political murder.
Apart from Sections 18 and 19 of the UAPA relating to conspiracy for terrorist act, Jayarajan has been slapped with charges coming under the Indian Penal Code for conspiracy, organised attack, attempt to murder, murder, destruction of evidence, etc. The CBI claimed that it was in possession of clinching evidences against the CPI(M) leader.
Responding to reports on the chargesheet, Jayarajan said, “The charge is part of the Central Government’s political hunt against me. Our stand is that imposition of UAPA charges can be done only in consultation with the Government. The CBI has not sought this.” Steps would be taken for seeking legal protection, he said in Kannur.
A CPI(M) killer gang had hacked and stabbed Manoj (42), Sharirik Shiksha Pramukh of the RSS in Kannur, to death in Kathiroor when he was on his way to Kannur from his house in a Maruti Omni vehicle on the morning of September 1, 2014. The killers had attacked him by dragging him out of the vehicle after creating a terror atmosphere by hurling country bombs.
According to the CBI, Jayarajan had conspired to get Manoj murdered out of personal and political enmity. Manoj was fifth accused in the case relating to the attempt to murder Jayarajan, allegedly mounted by the RSS at his house in East Kathiroor near Thalassery on August 25, 1999. The attack had left Jayarajan crippled in one hand.
Jayarajan and Vikraman had entered into a conspiracy to murder Manoj in a terrorizing manner in order to send terror messages to other RSS activists in Kannur and to create terror in the people, the CBI said. It had filed a chargesheet against 19 accused last year and Jayarajan and five others, including Madhusoodanan, have now been arraigned as accused later.
Jayarajan had been under the scanner of the investigators in the Manoj murder case right from the beginning. The Special Crime Branch team of the Kerala Police which probed the murder initially had set its eyes on him but the probe did not progress in that direction due to alleged political pressures.
After the State Government issued a notification recommending a CBI probe into the murder just when the Crime Branch investigation was on following intense demands from the BJP-RSS and in the context of the slapping of the charges under UAPA, the Central agency took over the investigation on September 28, 2014.
The CPI(M) leader had surrendered in a Thalassery court on February 12, 2016 after the High Court rejected his anticipatory bail plea was released on bail more than a month later. The BJP and RSS accuse Jayarajan of being the chief architect of almost all major incidents of violence in Kannur, described as Kerala’s Marxist heartland and political killing field.