Kannur: A CPM worker has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of an RSS worker in Kannur’s Panoor in 2009, one of four killings in a cycle of political retaliation that claimed three lives within two days.

The Third Additional District and Sessions Judge in Thalassery, Ruby K Jose, sentenced Jammindavida Biju, 44, to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹2 lakh for the murder of V C Vinayan, a Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) worker. The judge directed that the fine, if realised, be paid to Vinayan’s legal heirs as compensation.

The court acquitted the seven other accused, all CPM workers, holding that the prosecution had failed to establish their involvement beyond reasonable doubt.

Of the 24 people accused in the three murder cases dating back to 2009 and investigated by Panoor police, Biju, a coolie from Champad in Panniyannur panchayat, is the only person convicted. The other two cases ended without a single conviction.

Vinayan (39) was hacked to death at Kurichikkara near Champad on the evening of March 12, 2009. A day before, suspected RSS workers hacked to death CPM worker Parambath Ajayan in the same area. Vinayan was attacked when Ajayan’s funeral procession was taken out, said Additional District Government Pleader K Roopesh, who prosecuted the case.

Within 45 minutes of Vinayan's murder, suspected RSS-BJP workers hacked to death CPM activist Chanbatt Chandran. The attack was allegedly led by Vinayan’s brother, K C Santhosh. Santhosh died during the trial in the Chandran murder case. The remaining nine accused, associated with the RSS and BJP, were acquitted in October 2023. In August that year, seven accused in the Ajayan murder case were also acquitted after a 14-year trial.

The fourth killing in the series came in 2010, when BJP worker K C Rajesh, alias Yesu, was murdered. Yesu was an accused in Ajayan's murder case. The trial in Yesu's murder case is still pending.

Why only Biju was convicted
Murali, a prosecution witness and BJP supporter, testified that he saw Biju and three or four others attacking Vinayan around 6.30 pm on March 12, 2009. Murali is the brother of Shaji, an accused in the Chandran murder case.

K V Satheesan and Dileep Kumar, who were walking with Vinayan, testified that the assailants arrived in an Innova, threatened them and chased them away before attacking Vinayan. While Satheesan identified Biju as one of the assailants in court, Dileep Kumar was unable to identify any of them.

Though the prosecution said Vinayan was attacked with swords and an axe, it failed to prove that Biju personally carried a weapon. The court convicted him of murder based on the eyewitness testimony identifying him as a member of the unlawful assembly that attacked Vinayan.

The post-mortem findings established that Vinayan had died in a violent assault.

Why the others were acquitted
The prosecution could not reliably establish that the other accused alleged to have been part of the attacking group were among the assailants.

The remaining seven accused who were acquitted were K Shaji alias Chetti Shaji (49), T K Rajeesh (47), P M Arun Kumar (48), Rinil T (46), Bigesh J (42), Ashkar (42) and Rajendranath (55).

The court said there were lapses in the investigation, including the failure to hold a test identification parade and trace the Innova by its registration number. The prosecution had also initially named a different set of accused before bringing others into the case.

Public prosecutor Adv Roopesh said the case against the other accused had depended substantially on the testimony of Ameen, the driver of the Innova allegedly used in the murder. The driver later turned hostile, claiming that he had named the accused because the police threatened to implicate him in the murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party leader T P Chandrasekharan in 2012.

Panoor Police arrested Biju in May 2009. However, the other seven accused were arrested between June and November 2012.