Daily News Dose: SDPI activist murdered in Palakkad | Apr 15, 2022

Hello, this is your daily dose of news from Onmanorama I'm your host, Princy Alexander. Before I move on to the major news stories of the day, we at Onmanorama would like to wish each one of you a Happy Vishu. Now, for the major news stories

SDPI worker hacked to death in Kerala's Palakkad

Former SC Judge Justice Kurian Joseph to  lead negotiations for the release of Malayali nurse on death row in Yemen

KPCC to toughen stance against KV Thomas, to nail him on pro-K-Rail speech

Investigators recover 11,161 videos, 22,000 audios and 2 lakh photos from various devices used by accused in the actor assault case

Power minister K Krishnankutty to meet pro-Left unions to end tussle with KSEB chairman B Ashok

A youth was hacked to death by assailants at Elappully in Kerala's Palakkad district on Friday. The 43-year-old, Subair, was attacked by the gang while he was travelling with his father on a bike. The assailants came in two cars, the police said. Though Subair was immediately taken to a hospital, he succumbed to the injuries, they said. The body has been shifted to a mortuary. The postmortem will be held later. Subair's father Kuppiyod Aboobacker, who suffered injuries from the fall from the bike, is presently undergoing treatment at a hospital. Subair was a district committee member of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). The SDPI charged that the murder was plotted by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). They alleged that this was a retaliation for the murder of 27-year-old RSS worker Sanjith. One of the cars used by the assailants belonged to Sanjith, according to them.

Former Supreme Court judge Justice Kurian Joseph will lead the negotiations with the family of a Yemeni national for the release of Nimisha Priya, a Keralite nurse who is on death row in Yemen.The 'Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council' has been trying to save Nimisha from capital punishment by paying blood money in accordance with Yemen's laws. Earlier, the Centre had refused to be directly involved in the negotiations and payment of blood money. It had said no embassy can be part of negotiations to pay blood money. However, the central government had said in Delhi High Court that the authorities will take all proactive steps to institute an appeal before the next appellate forum in accordance with the prevalent law and the consul concerned shall extend all cooperation and facilitate the travel of the petitioners to Yemen.  Nimisha Priya, a nurse working in Yemen, was convicted of murder in 2020 for the murder of the Yemini national Talal Abdo Mahdi. Mahdi died in July 2017 allegedly of overdose after she injected him with sedatives to get her passport that was in his possession.

The KPCC leadership is toughening its stance against former Union Minister K V Thomas, who took part in the seminar organised by CPM at its Party Congress venue in Kannur. The Congress state unit is planning to pinpoint the speech of Thomas supporting SilverLine semi-high-speed rail project as an act of gross indiscipline.It nurtures the view that Thomas' speech could not be justified at all since the party has been on an agitational path against the project. The content of the speech made by Thomas at the CPM seminar did not form part of the letter given by KPCC president K Sudhakaran to the high command, recommending disciplinary action against Thomas. The party is also not expected to invite Thomas to the KPCC political affairs committee (PAC) meeting. It may also request the central leadership to remove Thomas from the PAC.

The Crime Branch team investigating the sexual assault of a leading actress in 2017 has decided to seek more time from the court to present the huge volume of digital evidence it uncovered recently. This is based on the legal advice received by the team to convince the court regarding the magnitude of digital data recovered by Forensic experts from various devices, including the mobile phones used by the accused. In fact, investigators have recovered 11,161 videos from devices, including the phones from which data was erased by the accused. Of these videos, 6,682 are yet to be examined by the Crime Branch team. Similarly, while 11,238 audio clips were checked, another 10,879 remain to be heard by officers. The team has also examined over two lakh photos and another 65,384 are yet to be checked. As many as 1,597 documents too were scrutinized and 779 are yet to be examined. Officials said the report being prepared by Forensic experts has already touched two lakh pages.

Power Minister K Krishnankutty will intervene to end the tussle between pro-Left unions in the Kerala State Electricity Board and the public utility's chairman and managing director, B Ashok. The minister has convened a meeting on Monday with the Left-affiliated associations, even as the CMD took a swipe at the unions, saying their stir would not yield any result. The KSEB Officers' Association (KSEBOA) has been on an indefinite strike since Monday following a fresh row over the financial status of the Board. The CMD's decision to deploy the State Industrial Security Force at Vydyuthi Bhavan, the KSEB headquarters, and other installations, had drawn flak from CITU and AITUC two months ago. Justifying the management, Minister Krishnankutty said it had tried to iron out the differences, and withdrew the suspensions of the employees. "The management cannot be blamed for everything," he said, adding issues with the decisions, if any, would be rectified.

Meanwhile, it has been indicated that the management had rectified its order that excluded KSEBOA general secretary B Harikumar while promoting executive engineers, some of them even junior to the union secretary.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Be sure to come back tomorrow. As always, thanks for listening to Daily News Dose.