The Special NIA Court in Kochi will on Friday pronounce the quantum of punishment for the 13 Islamists it had convicted on April 30 for chopping off the right hand of college professor TJ Joseph five years ago accusing him of blaspheming Prophet Muhammad in a question paper he had set for his students. During arguments in the court on Tuesday, the Prosecution requested awarding of maximum punishment - in the particular case, life imprisonment - to the convicts as the crime that they had committed did not qualify them for pardon. The counsel for the NIA, which probed the case, pointed out that they were not repentant of their crime.
On April 30, Special NIA Court judge P Sasidharan had pronounced as guilty 13 of the 31 accused against whom chargesheets were filed. All the accused belonged to the radical Islamist organisation, Popular Front of India (PFI), and its political wing, Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). The court had acquitted 18 of the accused for want of evidence.
Arguing that the Islamists' attack on the professor should be considered as an act of extremism, the Prosecution appealed to the court to slap fine on the convicts and to give the money to Prof Joseph as compensation. It said the accused had acted like a parallel Government and called for separate punishment for each of the charge slapped on them.
Pleading to avoid handing down of tough punishment, the counsel for the accused pointed out that even the professor, the main party to the case, had already pardoned them. In this context, the convicts deserved only simple punishment, the counsel argued. The convicts also pleaded with the court not to be tough on them considering their family backgrounds.
Stating that the attack on the professor was the result of sudden provocation, the counsel or the accused also appealed to the court not to view the incident as an act of extremism. He requested the court to view the incident as an attack against an individual and not as one against the society. The court concluded hearing the arguments on Tuesday and posted the case to Friday.
Prof Joseph had said on April 30 that the verdict did not make any difference to him as he had already forgiven the assailants in the court of his conscience. He had said that the real culprits, as far as he was concerned, were the authorities who had pointed him out to the assailants by initiating a case against him in the name of a non-existent act of blasphemy.
A group of Islamists belonging to the PFI and SDPI had attacked Joseph, then Malayalam professor at Catholic Church-managed Newman College in Thodupuzha, Idukki district on the morning of July 4, 2010 when he was returning home with his sister and mother after attending Sunday Mass at a church near his house in Muvattupuzha in Ernakulam district.
One of the Islamists chopped off his right hand with an axe and threw it into a vacant plot nearby. The Kerala Police, which initially probed the case, had listed 54 as accused. The NIA, which took over the probe later considering the extremist nature of the incident, dropped 16 from the list. Five of the accused, including the main conspirator, are still absconding.
The convicts have already made it clear that they would appeal against the verdict of the Special NIA Court. As per reports, the NIA also is considering going for appeal in the context of the acquittal of a large number of the accused.