The Chief Judicial Magistrate Court in Thodupuzha in Kerala's Idukki district on Wednesday exonerated Prof TJ Joseph, whose right hand was chopped off by Islamists in 2010, from the charge of preparing a question paper that allegedly promoted religious hatred.
Islamists belonging to the Social Democratic Party of India, the political wing of the Popular Front of India, had chopped off the right hand of Joseph, then head of the Department of Malayalam at Church-managed Newman's College, Thodupuzha, in 2010 accusing him of blaspheming Prophet Muhammad through a test paper.
Joseph submitted before the court that he had shown no disrespect for any religion through the test paper as it was based on a book written by pro-left script-writer PT Kunhumuhammad. The court accepted this submission to grant discharge to Joseph from the case, observing that the charge against him was not maintainable. The court had heard the arguments on November 6.
On March 25, 2010, Muslims had staged demonstrations in Thodupuzha in protest against a Malayalam question paper prepared by Joseph for the second-semester B Com students of the college for their internal examinations, alleging that a particular question featuring an imaginary dialogue had blasphemed Prophet Muhammad.
The furious protests that continued for several days forced the college management to tender apology over the question paper but Joseph went into hiding after the police registered a case against him for trying to promote religious hatred. He was arrested from Painavu, headquarters of Idukki district, on April 1 that year.
Joseph was released on bail later. In an early morning attack on July 4, 2010, a gang of SDPI activists chopped off his right hand and threw it into a nearby plot as he was returning home in his car with his mother and sister after attending Sunday Mass at a local church in his native town Muvattupuzha in Ernakulam district.
Just when Joseph was undergoing treatment at a specialty hospital in Kochi where his chopped hand was joined back, the management suspended him from service. There were requests from all around, even from the then Education Minister and V-C of the MG University to which the college was affiliated, to take him back but the management refused to relent.
The brutal attack on the professor had woken the Kerala Police to the reality of the existence of a vast Islamist network in the State and there was a massive hunt for those who were behind the crime. The NIA later took over the case from the Kerala Police and the trial in the case is presently going on at the Special NIA Court in Kochi.