In a setback for the Kerala CPI(M), the Special CBI Court in Kochi on Thursday rejected a petition seeking further probe into the murder of Muhammad Fazal, an activist of Islamist outfit NDF (presently Popular Front of India), in Thalassery, Kannur over a decade ago. The CBI had in the chargesheet listed eight people, including two senior CPI(M) leaders, as accused in the sensational case.
The petition seeking further investigation into the murder was submitted by Fazal’s brother Abdul Sattar, reportedly a CPI(M) sympathiser, on the basis of the ‘disclosure’ allegedly made by RSS worker K Subeesh to the police and to an RSS leader in a phone conversation that he and three other Sangh activists were behind the NDF worker’s murder.
The court dismissed the plea by observing that a further probe could not be ordered on the basis of the statement made by Subeesh. It said that there were contradictions between the statements of confession made by the RSS worker and the findings of the CBI, adding that a further investigation could not be ordered solely on the basis of Subeesh’s statements.
It was also pointed out that the High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the murder case on the basis of a petition submitted by Fazal’s widow and she had not sought further investigation into the killing. While the BJP said a CPI(M) conspiracy had been defeated by the court’s decision, the defendants’ counsel said they would approach the higher court.
The CBI, which had taken over the probe into Fazal murder case from the Kerala Police as per a High Court order, had submitted the chargesheet earlier by listing eight persons, including senior CPI(M) leaders Karayi Rajan and Karayi Chandrasekharan, known as highly influential politicians in Kannur, as accused.
Muhammad Fazal, an agent of Thejas newspaper, mouthpiece of the National Development Front, former Avatar of the Popular Front of India, was murdered in Thalassery on October 22, 2006. The State police had come to the conclusion that the RSS was behind the murder but Fazal’s widow claimed that her husband had no enmity with the RSS.
In a video clip that came out in the media recently, Subeesh was seen telling the police that he and other three RSS workers were behind the murder of Fazal, who was a CPI(M) worker before joining the NDF. In the video, Subeesh, showing no signs of the pressure of interrogation, was seen describing the details of the murder.
There was also a recording of a phone conversation with an alleged RSS leader in which Subeesh was heard saying that he himself had killed Fazal. Sattar and Karayi Rajan had produced the video clipping and the recording of the phone conversation which the court on Thursday declined to consider as evidence.
Immediately after the video appeared in the media, Subeesh had claimed that he had
made the statement before the police under torture, compulsion and threats. He said the police had made him read the script and present it before video camera several times in order to make it look like a statement he had made onhis own.
A conspiracy to save (Karayi Rajan and Karayi Chandrasekharan) had been defeated, said Fazal’s sister Ramla after hearing about the court’s decision. “The statement of Subeesh (as seen in the video) could not be trusted. It was the CPI(M) which had enmity towards Fazal. I am hopeful of getting justice in the case,” she told the media.
State BJP chief Kummanam Rajasekharan said the foul play by the CPI(M), for which it had used the police, had failed in the court. The BJP also wanted legal action to be initiated against the police officials who had allegedly trapped an “innocent youth”, Subeesh, in a fabricated case for a political party.