Chittarikkal (Kasaragod): CPM leader P Mohanan was acquitted in the T P Chandrasekharan murder case because of the deal struck by the then special public prosecutor C K Sreedharan with the Marxist party, alleged Congress state president K Sudhakaran.
His allegation comes a day after Sreedharan, a former state vice-president of the Congress, joined the CPM in Kanhangad on Saturday. Sreedharan was the Kasaragod district Congress president when he argued the sensational murder case at the Special Additional Sessions Court at Eranhipalam in 2014.
"When the final verdict came, I knew Sreedharan would move towards the Left Front," said Sudhakaran. The CPM gave party membership to Sreedharan as a reward for securing the acquittal of Mohanan, who was then a member of the CPM's Kozhikode district secretariat, the highest decision-making body of the party in the district.
Sudhakaran made the allegations after welcoming the Congress rebels led by East Eleri panchayat president James Panthamakkal back into the party at Chittarikkal on Sunday. "Unlike Sreedharan who left the Congress alone, Panthamakkal is returning to the party with thousands of supporters," he said.
Other party leaders such as district Congress president P K Faisal and Kasaragod Lok Sabha member Rajmohan Unnithan also lashed out at Sreedharan at the function.
Sreedharan made his intention to leave the Congress clear when chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan flew down to Kanhangad from Thiruvananthapuram to release the ace criminal lawyer's autobiography on October 19. At the event, the chief minister said Sreedharan should introspect whether he got the recognition he deserved in Congress.
On November 19, Saturday, CPM's state secretary M V Govindan welcomed him to the party.
On Sunday, Congress accused Sreedharan of compromising the TP Chandrasekharan murder case as the special public prosecutor as part of a pact with the CPM.
TP Chandrasekharan was murdered on May 2, 2012, after he left the CPM and formed the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) at Onchiyam in Kozhikode.
To be sure, Special Additional Sessions Court (Marad cases) at Eranhipalam convicted 12 persons, including three CPM leaders, in the murder case.
But the court also let off 24 accused, including P Mohanan, who was the 14th accused in the case. The prosecution had charged him with conspiracy and murder, and concealing the plot to murder.
Police arrested him on June 29, 2012, and remained in jail till he was acquitted in January 2014.
The other CPM leaders acquitted in the case were KK Krishnan, a member of the CPM's Onchiyam area committee; Jyothi Babu, a member of the CPM's Kunnothuparamba local committee; MK Raveendran alias Padayamkandi Raveendran, a member of the CPM local committee; C Babu, office secretary of CPM's Koothuparamba area committee, and K Dhananjayan, secretary of Koothuparamba area committee.
The Congress-led United Democratic Front was heading the government at the time of the acquittal.
Along with Sreedharan, Kumaran Kutty P was also the special public prosecutor in the case. He was appointed on the insistence of TP Chandrasekharan's wife K K Rema, who is now RMP MLA from Vadakara.
After the verdict, Sreedharan said he would appeal against the acquittal. The state government moved the high court against the verdict. But in September 2021, Sreedharan informed the LDF government that he could not continue as the special prosecutor in the case because of health reasons.
