Fifteen persons were recently sentenced to death by an additional district and sessions court in Kerala for murdering Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ranjith Sreenivasan in 2021. This is the first time in Kerala — a place known for political murders — that so many people were awarded the maximum penalty in a single case. The accused who belong to the now-banned extremist outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political wing Secular Democratic Party of India (SDPI), were
Fifteen persons were recently sentenced to death by an additional district and sessions court in Kerala for murdering Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ranjith Sreenivasan in 2021. This is the first time in Kerala — a place known for political murders — that so many people were awarded the maximum penalty in a single case. The accused who belong to the now-banned extremist outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political wing Secular Democratic Party of India (SDPI), were found guilty of murdering Sreenivasan, the state secretary of the BJP OBC Morcha. They were convicted of hacking him to death at his residence in Vellakinar in Alappuzha town on December 19, 2021.
The verdict of the trial court brought into the spotlight the menace of political murders, often retaliatory, in Kerala. Between 2006 and 2021, 125 political murders were committed in the state; most victims belonged to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fount of the Bharatiya Janata Party. At least 30 of those murders occurred between 2016 and 2021, the first term of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Here’s a look at some murder cases that had a significant impact on state politics.
TP Chandrasekharan
An influential and articulate leader, TP Chandrasekharan, had risen to the post of district secretary of the DYFI (Democratic Youth Federation of India), an affiliate youth outfit of the CPI(M) before he left the party in 2009 due to a difference of opinion with the leadership. Months later, he founded the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) and led it to victory in the local body polls in Onchiyam, his hometown and considered a stronghold of the CPI(M).
On May 4, 2012, Chandrasekharan, who was riding home on his two-wheeler, was attacked by a gang of men who threw country bombs at him and then slashed him with machetes, severely injuring him. He succumbed at a hospital the same night with doctors counting 51 deep wounds on his body.
In January 2014, a special additional sessions court in Kozhikode convicted 12 of the 36 accused in the case including a CPI(M) area committee member and a few local workers of the party. The court termed the murder 'politically motivated' and confirmed suspicions of the CPI(M) having harboured resentment against Chandrasekharan for working against the party.
In the 2021 Assembly elections, Chandrasekharan's widow and RMP leader KK Rema won from Vadakara Assembly seat with the help of Congress and defeated the CPI(M).
SP Shuhaib
A block secretary of the Youth Congress in Mattannur in Kannur district, 29-year-old SP Shuhaib was hacked to death by a gang of assailants on the night of February 12, 2018, at Edayannur. He was eating at a roadside stall along with his colleagues Riyad and Naushad when the attackers slashed him with swords, inflicting deep injuries; he died at the Kozhikode Medical College hospital.
In the hours following the attack, the Congress blamed the ruling CPI(M), claiming that Shuhaib was killed in retaliation for his earlier tiff with a few workers of the Students Federation of India (SFI), CPI(M)’s student wing. His colleagues, who were injured, also reportedly identified the attackers as local CPI(M) workers.
The trial in the murder case began in February 2020 in the additional district sessions court in Thalassery. All the 17 accused have close links with the CPI(M). Former DYFI member Akash Thillankeri is the prime accused in the case. While the trial is ongoing, the family of the victim has demanded that the investigation be handed over from local police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
KV Sudheesh
As India celebrated Republic Day on January 26, 1994, a gruesome political killing was reported in Koothuparambu in Kannur district. KV Sudheesh, joint secretary of the SFI Kerala committee and member of the outfit's central committee, was stabbed to death by a gang of assailants who killed him after barging into his home. Sudheesh's elderly parents looked on helplessly as their son was brutally murdered in front of them by the gang. Investigators later said he was stabbed a total of 36 times and that pieces of his body were strewn all over the victim’s home.
Several RSS workers were arrested by the police in the case. Police suspected that Sudheesh was murdered in retaliation for the alleged CPI(M) attack on RSS worker and school teacher Sadanandan Master a few months before in which the latter's legs were chopped off.
Pramuk Sanjith
A major flashpoint in hostilities between the RSS and the BJP and the PFI and the SDPI in Kerala was the murder of Pramuk Sanjith, a 27-year-old RSS mandal karyavah, on November 15, 2021.
A resident of Eduppukulam in Palakkad district, Sanjith was waylaid by a gang while he was taking his wife to work. The assailants, who were in a car, hit Sanjith on his two-wheeler and when he fell, they attacked him with sharp weapons in front of his wife who, incidentally, did not suffer any injuries. The RSS worker was ferried to a nearby hospital but the grave injuries led to his death.
K Surendran, the state BJP chief, blamed the SDPI, the political arm of the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI), and accused the ruling Left government of protecting the extremist outfit. By May 2022, the state police, which investigated the case, had arrested at least 10 persons, including a prominent PFI leader named Bava.
The murder of Sanjith was followed by retaliatory killings of Subair, a PFI leader, allegedly by RSS workers, and Sreenivasan, an RSS worker allegedly by PFI-SDPI workers.
While the trial in the Sanjith murder case is going on in a lower court, the High Court in May 2022 rejected a petition filed by Sanjith's widow for a CBI probe into the case. The state government opposed the plea stating that the local police had arrested all the accused in the case and that if a new agency comes, the probe will have to be restarted and the accused may slip off on bail.
Sharath Lal and Kripesh
Periya, a small village in Kasaragod district, hogged national headlines on February 17, 2019, when two Youth Congress activists named Kripesh (19) and Sharath Lal (24) were stabbed to death by assailants on motorcycles while the duo were returning after attending a temple event on a bike. Both Youth Congress activists succumbed to injuries sustained in the attack at two different hospitals.
The shocking murders of the two young activists heightened political tensions in the state and were used by the Opposition Congress and the BJP to target the CPI(M) government headed by Vijayan. They alleged that the number of political murders had gone up after Vijayan came to power and that the state police looked helplessly as party goons ruled the roost.
Though the case was first investigated by the Crime Branch of the state police, the Kerala High Court in September 2019 handed over the inquiry to the CBI responding to the victims’ families who alleged political interference in the local police probe.
In December 2021, the CBI filed the chargesheet in the case listing 24 persons as accused including CPI(M) local committee member A Peethambaran, former CPI(M) MLA KV Kunhiraman and several local workers of the party. The trial began in a CBI special court in Kochi in 2023 and is currently underway.
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