Alappuzha: Four persons, including a panchayat member of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), have been arrested and five cases registered in connection with posts inciting violence and issuing threats to Mavelikkara Additional Sessions Judge V G Sreedevi, who awarded death sentences to 15 PFI-SDPI workers for their involvement in the 2021 Ranjeet Sreenivas murder case.
“They have been produced before a court and remanded,” a senior police officer said, adding the investigation is progressing under a special team.
The arrested have been identified as Navas Naina (42) of Ponnad in Alappuzha, Nazeer Mon Khaleer (47) of Mannancherry, Rafi (38) of Mangalapuram in Thiruvananthapuram, and Shajahan (36) of Vandanam in Alappuzha.
Naina represents Ambalakkadavu ward in Mannancherry grama panchayat.
The Alappuzha South Police have so far registered four FIRs and the Punnapra Police too have lodged a case. “Efforts are on to identify more persons behind more Facebook accounts in which such messages appeared and we are tracking nine more persons,” the officer added.
The District Police Superintendent said the cyber wing is keeping a hawk-eye vigil on social media to identify hate posts and strong action will be taken against those who make such posts.
The arrests come a day after the Kerala police increased the security cover of Judge Sreedevi in view of the threatening messages appearing on certain social media handles.
“The police view the development (appearance of threat messages) seriously. There should be no doubt that we will be taking stringent measures,” the officer added.
The court had on Tuesday awarded death sentences to all 15 convicts in the case related to the murder of lawyer Ranjeet, who was the State Secretary of BJP’s OBC Morcha, on December 19, 2021.
Observing that the case falls under the rarest of rare category, Judge Sreedevi awarded capital punishment to Naisam, Ajmal, Anoop, Mohammed Aslam, Abdul Kalam alias Salam, Abdul Kalam, Saffaruddin, Manshad, Jaseeb Raja, Navas, Sameer, Nazir, Zakir Hussain, Shaji Poovathungal and Shernas Ashraf.
According to investigators, the killing of Ranjeet was a retaliatory strike to avenge the murder of SDPI’s State secretary K S Shan at Kuppezham Junction at Mannancherry, Alappuzha, allegedly by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activists the night before. The alleged trigger for the murder of Shan was the killing of RSS worker Nandukrishna by SDPI men at Vayalar in Alappuzha on February 24, 2021.
