The NIA on Wednesday filed appeals in the Kerala High Court against the May 8 order of the Special NIA Court in Kochi over the acquittal of six of the accused and terming as inadequate the punishment awarded to the convicts in the case pertaining to the chopping of the right hand of Professor TJ Joseph in 2010. All the accused in the case were Islamists belonging to the Popular Front of India.
The NIA Court had awarded eight-year rigorous imprisonment to ten of the 13 convicts while the remaining three were given two-year jail term. The NIA prayed to the High Court to review the trial court’s order and enhance the quantum of sentence awarded to the convicts. The NIA Court had acquitted 18 accused for want of evidence.
The agency wanted the High Court to review the decision of the NIA Court in the case of six accused who were acquitted. Of the ten who were awarded eight-year imprisonment, five were persons who had directly participated in the attack on the professor and five had been involved in the conspiracy behind the crime.
The investigating agency had prayed to the NIA Court to award life imprisonment to the main convicts as their crime was against the society. But the court limited the punishment to eight-year and two-year jail terms by accepting the argument of the accused that the crime was not against the society but against an individual.
The NIA filed the appeals in the High Court on the basis of instructions from the Union Home Department. The agency pointed out that the trial court had awarded punishment to the convicts without properly considering the seriousness of the case and without evaluating the facts and evidences.
A total of 37 Islamists belonging to the Popular Front and its political wing, Social Democratic Party of India, were chargesheeted by the NIA in the case. However, only 31 faced the trial as the remaining six including first accused Sawad who had chopped the professor’s hand, and chief conspirator MK Nasser, were still absconding.
Joseph, then a Malayalam professor at Church-run Newman College at Thodupuzha in Idukki district, was attacked by a group of PFI activists on the morning of July 4, 2010 when he was returning home with his mother and sister after attending Sunday Mass at a church in Muvattupuzha, Ernakulam allegedly for blaspheming the Prophet in a question paper he had set.
The Islamist assailants, who carried out the attack by creating a terror atmosphere by exploding country bombs, chopped off the right hand of the professor with an axe and threw it into a vacant plot nearby. Prof Joseph also suffered hack injuries in his left hand and leg. later, a local court ruled that the question paper he had set for his students did contain any blasphemy.