A court in Kerala on Wednesday found 12 people, including all members of a seven-man killer gang and three senior CPI(M) leaders, guilty in the politically sensational case pertaining to the brutal murder of rebel Marxist leader TP Chandrasekharan of Onchiyam, Kozhikode. The quantum of punishment for those found guilty will be announced on Thursday.
Judge R Narayana Pisharody of the Special Additional Sessions Court at Eranhipalam, Kozhikode acquitted 24 accused including CPI(M)’s Kozhikode district secretariat member P Mohanan, 14th accused, but the verdict gave clear indications of a criminal conspiracy by the CPI(M) behind the murder as the three Marxist leaders were found guilty.
The 12 persons convicted by the court included 13th accused PK Kunhananthan, area committee member of CPI(M) in Panur, Kannur, eighth accused KC Ramachandran, a local committee member of the party, and eleventh accused ‘Trouser’ Manoj, local committee secretary in Kunnothuparambu. All the three were found guilty of criminal conspiracy.
Pointing at the acquittal of Mohanan, the CPI(M) claimed that the theory of conspiracy by top Marxist leadership had been disproved but the Prosecution, Congress and the Revolutionary Marxist Party founded by Chandrasekharan cited the conviction of Kunhananthan, hailing from outside Kozhikode district, as proof of wider CPI(M) conspiracy behind the murder.
The court found the seven members of the killer gang – MC Anoop, ‘Kirmani’ Manoj, ‘Kodi’ Suni, TK Rajeesh, Muhammad Shafi, ‘Annan’ Sijith and Shinoj, accused one to seven respectively – guilty of murder, unlawful assembly, possession of arms and other charges. Three of them were also charged under Section 5 and Section 3 of the Explosives Act.
CPI(M) leaders said that appeal would be filed in the High Court against the special court verdict over the conviction of Kunhananthan and others while the Prosecution decided to appeal against the acquittal of Mohanan and middle-level Marxist leaders KK Krishnan, tenth accused, and Padayankandi Raveendran, 30th accused.
According to the Prosecution, the Marxist killer gang had hacked Chandrasekharan (51), a popular communist leader in Kozhikode district and former CPI(M) firebrand, to death at Vallikkad near Onchiyam on the night of May 4, 2012 as per the instructions of the CPI(M) leadership which was intolerant to the activities of RMP, the party he had founded in 2008.
The Prosecution had drawn up a list of 286 witnesses of whom 168 were examined. But 52 of them had dramatically turned hostile during the trial causing huge setback to the Prosecution. The 1,000-page chargesheet presented before the court was accompanied by 582 documents and 105 exhibits including swords, other weapons and a Toyota Innova car the killers had used.
Chandrasekharan’s widow KK Rama, also an RMP leader, said, “We are not fully satisfied with the court’s verdict. The role of the top CPI(M) leadership in the murder has been established by the verdict but the Prosecution has not been successful in proving the case against P Mohanan and other Marxist leaders.”
Rama and other RMP leaders renewed their call for a CBI probe into the aspect of wider CPI(M) conspiracy behind the murder. Several Congress leaders also demanded a CBI probe and Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, also the State Congress president, said that the Government was studying the demand and a decision would be taken at the appropriate time.
There were a total of 76 accused in the initial stage of the case but the number came down to 36 after two were removed from the list by the police, 20 acquitted by the trial court, the trial of 15 was stayed by the High Court and one CPI(M) leader, Onchiyam area secretary CH Asokan, died during the trial. Two of the accused were absconding.
The murder had led to intensification of the faction war in the CPI(M) with its State secretary describing the slain rebel leader as Kulamkuthy (betrayer of the tribe) while party central committee member and Opposition leader in the State Assembly VS Achuthanandan praising him as a true communist.