Palakkad: A special court in Kerala pronounced the sentence of the convicts in the Attappady Madhu lynching case on Wednesday.
The court awarded 7 years rigorous imprisonment for 13 convicts and 3-month jail term for the 16th accused. The first accused has to pay a fine of Rs. 1,05,000/- while the remaining 12 accused have been imposed with a fine of Rs. 1,18,000/-.
The convicts will be moved to Central Prison & Correctional Home, Thavanoor.
The first accused -- M Hussain -- was convicted for the offence under Section 304 II of IPC and the remaining were additionally held guilty for crimes under Section 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 367 (kidnapping or abducting in order to subject person to grievous hurt, slavery).
Sections 326 and 367 carry maximum punishments of life imprisonment and up to 10 years jail term, respectively. The convicts were also held guilty for the offence under Section 3(1)(d) of the SC/ST Act.
The 16th accused person in the case, Muneer, was only found guilty of the offence under Section 352 of IPC for the offence of "assault or criminal force otherwise than on grave provocation. His sentence was to undergo simple imprisonment for three months and to pay a fine of Rs. 500/-. However, since Muneer was already found to have completed the jail term during the remand period, the Court directed that he would be released from prison on remitting the fine.
The Mannarkad Special Court for cases under SC/ST Atrocities Act had on Tuesday convicted 14 people for beating Madhu, a tribal man, to death for allegedly stealing food articles in 2018 in Attappady of Palakkad district.
Madhu, said to be mentally ill, was beaten to death after he was caught from a cave in Ajamudi forest where he stayed and tied up by a group of local people who accused him of theft on February 22, 2018.
Special court judge K M Ratheesh Kumar convicted the accused for the offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 Part II of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which carries a maximum punishment of 10 years' jail term.
Special Public Prosecutor Rajesh M Menon a said that the case was weakened due to several witnesses turning hostile. "We started with direct evidence of the crime, but by the end of the trial we were left only with circumstantial evidence. The digital evidence played a crucial role in the case," he told reporters.
Madhu's mother said she was not satisfied with the verdict, especially the acquittal of the two accused and the fact that none of the 16 had been convicted for murder. "I will appeal against this verdict. All of them are guilty," she told reporters outside the court.
The victim's sister said she was thankful to the court for convicting 14 of the 16 accused but would appeal against the acquittal of the two persons. She was happy with the outcome, she said, as no one had thought they would be able to carry their fight to gain justice for Madhu this long and till this stage.
Meanwhile, State Minister for Welfare of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes K Radhakrishnan said that the verdict might probably come as a relief for Madhu's family and the people of Kerala as a whole, and might bring some satisfaction to them.
