A court in Thrissur, Kerala on Wednesday found controversial beedi tycoon Muhammad Nisham aka Ferrari Dad, guilty of brutally murdering security guard Chandrabose. Nisham had killed Chandrabose by ramming his Hummer SUV into him and beating him up. The Additional District Sessions Court, Thrissur may pronounce the quantum of punishment on today.
The Prosecution had slapped charges on Nisham under nine sections of the IPC and Additional Sessions Judge KP Sudheer approved those under seven of them including murder, infliction of injury and infliction of injury using lethal weapons. The case had become a huge sensation due to alleged interference by police officials and politicians in Nisham’s favour.
Requesting the court to consider the case as one falling under the rarest-of-the-rare category, Public Prosecutor CP Udayabhanu sought maximum punishment for the accused. Nisham had got into several criminal cases in the past and the case pertaining to allowing his 9-year-old son to drive a Ferrari three years back had earned him the nickname, Ferrari Dad.
The Prosecution also prayed to the court to extract a fine of Rs 5 crore from Nisham, said to possess an asset base worth Rs 5,000 crore, as compensation to the victim’s family. Stating that the accused was a threat to the society, Udayabhanu said he had murdered the security guard in the worst imaginable way by ramming a vehicle into him several times and beating him up.
The court premises in Thrissur witnessed dramatic scenes on Wednesday as the widow, mother and other relatives of Chandrabose thanked the Public Prosecutor in the middle of the hundreds of people including MlAs and other people’s representatives who had gathered there to hear the judge’s decision.
“He (Nisham) should be awarded death sentence. Otherwise how are we going to trust the JudiciaryIJ” asked Chandrabose’s widow. “He should be hung to death. The person whom he killed was the light of our family. He does not deserve to be on the face of the earth for another moment,” said the victim’s mother with tears welling in her eyes.
Nisham, a businessman with inter-state connections, had attacked Chandrabose at the gates of the posh villa complex, Sobha City, a few kilometers away from Thrissur city, in the wee hours of January 29, 2015 for being late by a few seconds to open the gates of the complex, where he was a resident, when he reached there in his Hummer SUV.
Nisham first rammed the Hummer into him several times and then dragged him to a parking lot and beat him up with his hand and using a wooden rod disregarding the appeals from Chandrabose’s colleagues to stop. The guard died at a private medical college hospital near Thrissur city 19 days later.
The Prosecution argued that the accused was trying to give out a message that the rich in the society could treat other people the way they liked and then buy justice with money. The witnesses who had given statements against Nisham were poor security guards like Chandrabose and they were facing threats from the accused, it said.
Submitting that the case did not belong to the rarest-of-the-rare category, the counsel for Nisham said that the incident was accidental and he had committed it deliberately. The accused had tried to stall and postpone the trial in the case by moving the High Court and Supreme Court several times.
Nisham’s wife Amal was the only witness who had turned hostile during the trial in the case. The verdict has come within a year of the incident. The 79-day trial was completed on January 13. The Supreme Court had asked the Thrissur court to conclude the case before January 31.