The decision of the Kerala Police’s Crime Branch to end the reinvestigation into the brutal murder of State Yuva Morcha vice-president KT Jayakrishnan, a primary school teacher in Panur, Kannur, in 1999 without taking it to completion has raised serious questions about the credibility of the force.
Allegations have already come up to the effect that the CB ended the probe in order to avoid the situation where senior CPI(M) leaders would have to be named accused in the case and also to protect the police officials who had probed the murder initially. It is also alleged that senior leaders of the CPI(M) had put pressure on the Home Ministry to end the CB probe.
Deputy Superintendent of Police AP Shoukathali, who was heading the CB reinvestigation, had submitted his report proposing to end the probe to Additional DGP Vincent M Paul with a reported recommendation for a CBI investigation, a demand being raised by the Sangh Pariwar and relatives of Jayakrishnan since the day of the murder.
The case was first investigated by the Kerala Police. Sources said that difficulties of the Crime Branch in questioning senior police officials who were involved in the probe earlier could have been one of the reasons for ending the reinvestigation. A thorough probe could have caused troubles for senior officials who had investigated the case earlier, they said.
The CB had started the reinvestigation into the Jayakrishnan murder case in December last following a Government order based on the statements given to the police by TK Rajeesh, a key accused in the case relating to the brutal murder of rebel Marxist leader TP Chandrasekharan of Onchiyam, Kozhikode that those arrested for the 1999 murder were not the actual culprits.
According to Rajeesh, who told his interrogators that he himself was involved in the Jayakrishnan murder, the police had made the arrests as per a “list of accused” provided by the local CPI(M) leadership. This statement had exposed the alleged secret understanding between CPI(M) leadership and the police in investigations in cases of political murders in Kannur.
Jayakrishnan was hacked to death by a Marxist killer gang on the morning of December 1, 1999 in front of his Class VI students in a classroom at the Mokeri East Upper Primary School in Panur, Kannur. The killers also left a message on the class’s blackboard that anyone appearing as witness for the crime would meet with the same fate as that of Jayakrishnan.
Though a Kannur court and the Kerala High Court had sentenced five CPI(M) activists to death for the murder, the Supreme Court had acquitted four of them, and had commuted the death sentence on first accused Acharuparambath Pradeepan, a local CPI(M) leader, for life imprisonment.
Several legal questions also were raised from some quarters about the legitimacy of a reinvestigation in a case which had been settled by the Supreme Court. Rajeesh, whose statements to the police had formed the basis for the re-investigation, had later told the court that he had not said anything like and this also presented legal problems to the CB.
However, there were allegations at the start of the Crime Branch probe that the top CPI(M) leadership was trying to scuttle it by putting pressure on the Home Department. It was also alleged that the Home Department had refused to provide the required officials and other assistance to the investigating team headed by Shoukathali.
The ending of the CB probe has led to renewed demand for a CBI investigation into the murder. Demanding a CBI probe, Kerala BJP president V Muraleedharan alleged that the State Government had so far refused to consider the demand for such a probe to find the actual culprits and to expose the conspiracy behind the crime.