Kottayam: Government sabotaging Anchery murder trial, says prosecutor

KOTTAYAM: The LDF government is allegedly trying to sabotage the trial in the Anchery Baby murder case in which Electricity Minister M.M. Mani and CPM Idukki secretary K.K. Jayachandran are the accused. This charge has been raised by special public prosecutor Siby Chenappady, who, the government says, is an active member of the Congress party.

The trial in the case is now going on at the additional sessions court, Thodupuzha.

The government had issued an order on July 24 last year cancelling his appointment as special prosecutor, but the High Court nullified the order on May 14 this year and he was reinstated. A government petition seeking the revocation of the single bench order will be considered by a division bench on July 19.

Siby alleged that the police were not sharing the case file with him and hence he could not appear in the court on the last two occasions.

“It is rarely that a prosecutor is removed while the case is progressing,” he told DC. He was offered police protection following alleged threats from various corners after he took charge of the case on July 22, 2013. All the required evidence has been collected to complete the trial, he said.

The present case is the fallout of the speech made by M.M. Mani, the then Idukki district secretary of the CPM, at Manakkad on May 25, 2012 saying that the CPM had eliminated its political enemies in the district. Later, Mohandas, a former CPM local committee secretary and a former accused in the case, gave a statement under section 164 of the CrPC before the judicial first class magistrate court, Adimaly, that Mani, K.K. Jayachandran, O.G. Madanan and others had conspired at the Rajakad area committee office of the CPM to eliminate Anchery Baby, the Senapathy mandalam president of the Youth Congress. He was shot dead on November 13, 1982 allegedly by CPM activists while he was going to Manathode through a cardamom estate.

The Thodupuzha police registered a case and conducted investigations. The then UDF government formed a special investigation team and Mani was arrested on November 21, 2012. There were four accused initially in the murder case and three were added later by the police. The first accused is Pampupara Kuttan, second accused M.M. Mani, third accused O.G. Madanan, and fourth accused the late Varkey Abraham. The police also added K.K. Jayachandran as fifth accused, A.K. Damodaran as sixth accused and V.M. Joseph as seventh accused.

Mani, who spent 42 days in jail, was granted bail by the High Court and he resigned as district secretary.

Initially, nine accused in the case were acquitted by the Thodupuzha additional sessions court on March 21, 1986 and the High Court exonerated them by giving them the benefit of doubt on June 24, 1990.