Periya double murder: Dean Kuriakose, MC Kamaruddin acquitted in hartal vandalism case

Kasaragod: A court in Kanhangad has acquitted Congress MP Dean Kuriakose and 10 other United Democratic Front (UDF) leaders and workers in cases alleging vandalism during a statewide hartal called after the 2019 Periya double murder.

The Hosdurg Judicial First Class Magistrate Court cleared Kuriakose, former Manjeshwar MLA and Muslim League leader M C Kamaruddin, senior Congress leader A Govindan Nair and eight UDF workers, citing lack of evidence.

The hartal was called on February 18, 2019, a day after Youth Congress workers Kripesh and Sarathlal P K were hacked to death at Kalliyot near Periya. Kuriakose, then state president of the Youth Congress, had announced the strike immediately after news of the killings broke. The call violated a high court directive requiring prior notice for hartals, said the prosecution.

Kamaruddin, then chairman of the UDF’s Kasaragod committee, and Govindan Nair, then UDF district convenor, were arraigned for implementing the strike in the district. Eight workers -- Kamalakshan C, Rajesh T, Kripesh M, Arunkumar A, Kiran alias Kiran Yadav, Rakesh, Subhash K and Saji Kumar T -- were accused of carrying out acts of vandalism.

They were charged with unlawful assembly, rioting and mischief causing damage under the Indian Penal Code, along with Section 4 of the Kerala Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act.

According to the prosecution, an autorickshaw parked near Periya Bazaar and a unit of Dinesh Beedi at the same junction were vandalised during the hartal. Forty-four windowpanes of the beedi unit were allegedly smashed. The estimated losses were ₹12,000 for the autorickshaw and ₹27,296 for the beedi unit.

The police had earlier collected ₹20,000 from four of the accused under the Payment of Compensation Ordinance, 2019.

After examining the FIR, scene mahazar, seizure records and witness testimonies, the court found the evidence insufficient to establish guilt and acquitted all 11 accused in the two connected cases.

Defence counsel P Latheesh said the prosecution did not even submit documents establishing the existence of the Dinesh Beedi unit at Periya Bazaar. In the autorickshaw case, he argued, primary evidence had not been collected. “We have not yet received the copy of the judgment to know the detailed reasons for the acquittal,” he said. The defence counsel, however, said that the ₹20,000 collected from the accused would now have to be returned.

Initially, the police had also booked Congress leader and former Pullur-Periya panchayat president C K Aravindakshan in the case, but later dropped the charges after concluding that he was not present in the area when the violence broke out.

In the main double murder case, a CBI court in Kochi had found 10 CPM leaders and local workers guilty of murder and criminal conspiracy and sentenced them to double life imprisonment. Four other CPM leaders, including former Udma MLA K V Kunhiraman and former Kanhangad Block Panchayat president K Manikandan, were sentenced to five years in prison for forcibly freeing an accused from police custody shortly after the killings.