The Additional District and Sessions Court in Thrissur, Kerala, on Thursday sentenced beedi tycoon Muhammad Nisham (41) to life imprisonment and an additional 24 years’ imprisonment for the brutal murder of a security guard, Chandrabose (48), by ramming his Hummer SUV into him on January 29 last year. The court also slapped a fine of Rs80.30 lakh on Nisham.
“The court has sentenced Nisham to life imprisonment and asked him to pay up Rs70-lakh fine for murder under Section 302 of the IPC. He was also given 24-year jail for other offences. The punishment will run separately, meaning he will be in jail for a minimum of 39 years. He has to pay up a total of Rs80.30 lakh in fines,” said Special Public Prosecutor CP Udayabhanu.
According to the judgment of Additional District and Sessions judge KP Sudheer, Rs50 lakh from the fine to be extracted from Nisham would go to the family of Chandrabose as compensation.
The prosecution had on Wednesday sought death sentence for Nisham saying that the case belonged to the rarest-of-the-rare category. It had also prayed to the court to extract a fine of Rs5 crore from Nisham, who was said to have an asset base worth Rs5,000 crore, and hand it over to the victim’s family as compensation.
“We are not satisfied with the verdict. We were hoping that he would get death sentence… I feel that we don’t want his money but will take a decision on the basis of others’ advices. Imprisonment won’t be adequate punishment for him because a rich man like him will be able to live in complete luxury in the jail,” said Jamanthi, widow of Chandrabose.
“I wanted him to get the noose. Nothing else would satisfy me,” said Ambujakshi, Chandrabose’s mother. Stating that awarding sentence to the convict was a matter of the court’s discretion, prosecutor Udayabhanu said, “I am happy that the court has accepted all the arguments of the prosecution. We will decide on other things after discussions.”
“Has there been a fair probe into the death of ChandraboseIJ No,” said a relative of Nisham, alleging that the basis of the entire police and legal procedures in the case was the “overblown sentimentalism” publicised through media. “Nobody looked at Nisham’s case. There is immense scope for appeal. And we are going for that,” he said.
State Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala said that the Government was not happy with the sentence awarded to Nisham. “The Government feels that this punishment is inadequate. We are considering the possibilities of going for appeal,” he told the media while Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said Nisham had got the punishment he deserved.
The judge also issued instructions to initiate a criminal case against Amal, wife of Nisham, for making false witness statement. Amal, whom the prosecution had listed as an eyewitness to the attack on Chandrabose, had initially given a statement under Section 164 of the CrPC. However, she turned hostile and gave statement favouring her husband at the trial stage.
According to the prosecution, Nisham, a businessman with inter-State connections, had attacked Chandrabose at the gates of the posh villa complex, Sobha City, a few kilometres away from Thrissur city, in the wee hours of January 29, 2015 for being late by a few seconds to open the gates of the complex, where he was a resident, when he reached there in his Hummer SUV.
Nisham, managing director of Kings Group of companies involved in beedi production, tobacco export and real estate, rammed the Hummer into Chandrabose several times and then dragged him to a parking lot and beat him up disregarding the appeals from other security guards to stop. The guard died at a private medical college hospital near Thrissur city 19 days later.