A Kerala court on Thursday sentenced to life imprisonment the nine accused whom it had the other day found guilty of murdering a 26-year-old man three years ago alleging illicit relationship with a young woman at Kodiyathur in Kozhikode district. This is the first case of murder by ‘moral police’ in the State in which a court has pronounced sentence.
The Special Additional Sessions Court at Eranhipalam, Kozhikode, which had accepted the Prosecution’s contention that the murder was pre-planned, however, refused to include it in the rarest-of-rare category. It said that maximum punishment was not being awarded considering the young age of most of the convicts and the fact that they were bread-earners for their families.
Those who were awarded life imprisonment were first accused Abdurahman alias Cheriyappu (55), third accused Abdul Kareem (45), fourth accused Abdul Nasser (31), fifth accused Fayaz (28), sixth accused Najid (22), eighth accused Rashid (22), ninth accused Hijas Rahman (24), tenth accused Muhammad Jamsheer (25) and 11th accused Shahul Hameed (29).
Special Judge S Krishnakumar also slapped a fine between Rs15,000 and Rs25,000 on the convicts. They would have to serve jail terms of up to two years if they failed to pay the fine, the judge said. He also ordered that Rs2,00,000 of the fine amount should be handed over to the family of the murdered young man.
The case pertained to the murder of Shaheed alias Bava of Cheruvadi near Kodiyathur on the night of November 9, 2011 by a gang of 15 men accusing him of illicit and immoral relationship with a young woman. Bava was attacked by the gang as he was leaving the house of the young woman at about 11.30 pm that day. The gang had attacked Bava with wooden rods and other weapons after tying him to an electric pole. When the local police and people tried to intervene, the gang scared them away. Bava was admitted with severe injuries and in an unconscious state to the Government Medical College Hospital in Kozhikode where he died on November 13.
There were a total of 15 accused in the case. The Eranhipalam court had on Wednesday found the nine guilty of murder, conspiracy, unlawful assembly, possession of weapons and assault with the intention to kill. It acquitted five of the accused for want of evidence. Fifteenth accused Faiz (25) has been absconding since the day of the incident.
The special court refused to accept the defence counsels’ argument that the murder was accidental as the Prosecution produced evidences to prove that there was conspiracy behind the incident.The gang had assembled on the spot with weapons as per information passed on by fourth accused Nasser, an auto rickshaw driver, who had dropped Bava at the woman’s place.
There were a total of 80 witnesses in the case and 42 of them, including the young woman near whose house the incident took place, were examined. As per the post-mortem report, Bava had suffered 51 wounds and a deep wound in the head had been the cause of death. The chargesheet in the case was submitted on February 6, 2012.
The murder of Bava, the first major incident of “moral police” attack in Kerala, had triggered a political storm in the State following reports that some of the assailants could have had connections with a particular outfit. Political leaders had termed the incident as an example of the entry of Talibanism into Kerala.