Capital punishment to 15 PFI-SDPI convicts in BJP leader's murder

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An additional district sessions court in Kerala on Tuesday awarded capital punishment to all 15 convicts for the murder of BJP leader Ranjeet Sreenivasan in December 2021. Sreenivasan, BJP OBC Morcha Kerala chief, was hacked to death at his residence in Alappuzha in front of his mother and daughter.

Additional district sessions judge Sreedevi V.G. said it was the rarest of the rare cases and awarded capital punishment to Naisam, Ajmal, Anoop, Mohammad Aslam, Abdul Kalam alias Salam, Abdul Kalam, Saffaruddin, Manshad, Jaseeb Raja, Navas , Sameer, Nazir, Zakir Hussain, Shaji Poovathungala and Shernas Ashraf.

The court on January 20 found all 15 accused who are members of the now banned Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political outfit, Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), guilty for the murder of Sreenivasan, who was also an RSS leader.

Security was tightened in and around the entire court premises on Tuesday in view of the pronouncement of the sentence.

Accused No.s 1 to 8 were directly involved in the murder of the BJP leader, while 9 to 12 waited outside the house to provide logistic support to the killers and facilitate their exit. The court found that Accused No.s 13 to 15 hatched the conspiracy.

The prosecution had informed the court that the conspiracy to murder Sreenivasan was hatched in three phases. After the killing of RSS worker Nandu Krishna in Vayalar, the SDPI assailants had anticipated retaliatory killing by the rivals. They decided in advance to kill a person from the opposite camp.

The second conspiracy was hatched on December 18, 2021, following the killing of PFI activist Shaan in Mannancherry. While discussing the retaliation plan, the assailants decided to eliminate Sreenivasan. The prosecution said that at the same midnight, the accused assembled at Alappuzha railway station road took a round of Ranjeet’s house and returned.

The next day, the assailants reached Srineevasan’s house at 6 am and hacked him to death. As Srinevasan was a prominent lawyer in Alappuzha, advocates refused to appear for the opposite party, which delayed the trial.

The court prior to pronouncing the sentence, also took into consideration the report of the accused regarding the mental condition, mental health, and behaviour in prison submitted by the state government, the psychiatry department of Alappuzha Medical College and the special sub-jail superintendent respectively.