Kerala High Court sends Shuhaib murder case to CBI

Kochi: The LDF government  has suffered a major setback with the High Court on Wednesday ordering a CBI probe into the killing of S.P. Shuhaib,  president of the  Mattannur Youth Congress block committee, on February 12. A single bench said  that  the probe by the state police agency was not  satisfactory and rejected the state government’s argument  that the court does not have  the power to consider the case and that it  should not intervene in the case at this stage of investigation.

The counsel for the CBI  informed the court that the agency was ready to take over the investigation. The CBI unit of Thiruvananthapuram will  investigate the case.

The court,   which issued the order on a petition filed by the father of Shuhaib,  said everybody knows  who are behind the political killings.  It  was  concerned whether it could raise even a little finger against the prevailing practices. It would be unfortunate if the conspiracy behind the murder goes unproved, it observed. The practice of political killings needs to be ended, it  said  and observed that many people concerned were  washing their hands of the situation. 

“How the police can conduct a legitimate investigation based on justice in such a situation,” the court said.         

It also asked whether any of the accused in the case was having any personal enmity with the victim. It pointed out that the court had ordered  CBI probes  in three murder cases in Kannur district.

On the contention of the state government that the court does not  have jurisdiction to handle the case,  the judge  said  that the court had handled similar cases. 

The counsel for the state said  that the killing was a sequel to the political rivalry and clashes at the local level.  Shuhaib was involved in beating Biju, one of the accused in the murder case. Biju was a CPM fellow-traveller while Shuhaib a Congress worker, the counsel pointed out.