Veteran criminal lawyer and former Congress leader CK Sreedharan, who switched allegiance to CPM recently, will appear for the accused in the Periya double murder case.

Sreedharan will appear for prime accused Peethambaran and a host of fellow CPM workers, including K Manikandan, KV Kunhiraman and P Balakrishnan.

A CBI Court handling the case is expected to begin a trial on February 2.

Peethambaran and five other men are accused of hacking to death Youth Congress activists Kripesh (19) and Sarath Lal P K (24) on February 17, 2019.

After the Crime Branch named Peethambaran and 13 others as accused, the party reportedly dropped him from local leadership.

The entry of Sreedharan in the case involving the murder of two Youth Congress workers has surprised many as he had been a member of the Congress party since 1977 until this November when he joined the CPM.

Sreedharan was a former state vice-president of the Congress party. He had also been the party's Kasaragod district president between December 2012 and December 2016.

During his time with the Congress, Sreedharan embarrassed the LDF by securing the conviction of 12 CPM members in the TP Chandrasekharan murder at Onchiyam near Vadakara in Kozhikode in 2012.