Palakkad: A special court in Kerala’s Palakkad district will pronounce the verdict in the Attappady Madhu lynching case on April 4.
The Mannarkkad Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Court announced the date of verdict while considering the case on Thursday. The trial in the case, pertaining to the mob trial and lynching of the Adivasi youth in Attappady, was completed in the court five years after the shocking incident. Madhu was captured from a cave inside a forest and paraded to Mukkali, a small junction in Attappady, by a group of people who accused him of frequently stealing from the shops in the area. He was allegedly assaulted by the accused leading to his death. He was handed over to the police at Mukkali and had to be taken to a hospital on the way to the police station. However, he was declared brought dead by the hospital.
There are 16 accused in the case, all natives of Mukkali, Anamooli and Kallamala areas of Attappady. There were 129 witnesses and 100 of them were examined. As many as 24 of them turned hostile during the trial. The Special Court Judge K M Ratheesh Kumar completed the trial proceedings of the case under the supervision of the High Court.
The prosecution has exuded confidence that the accused will be convicted and sentenced to maximum punishment. The defence counsels, on the other hand, are trying everything possible to get the accused acquitted. The defence’s major argument is that Madhu was tortured by the police, and not the accused.
The proceedings at the special court which is hearing the case had kicked-off in April 2022. Last October the court had granted bail to 11 accused with strict conditions.
Police arrested the accused two days after the incident following an uproar over Madhu’s death. Photographs and videos of the tribal youth in the custody of a group of people were widely circulated on social media.
All the 16 accused, however, secured conditional bail from the Kerala High Court on May 30, 2018. In August the trial court cancelled the bail of the 12 accused to prevent them from influencing the witnesses. The Kerala High Court upheld the decision to cancel the bail of 11 of the accused while setting aside the order on one of the accused.
