Alappuzha: The Mavelikara Additional District Session Court-I will pronounce the quantum of sentence for 15 convicts in the murder of BJP leader Ranjeet Sreenivas on Thursday.
Considering the case on Monday, Sessions judge Sreedevi V G heard the defense side on the quantum of punishment and posted the case for January 25 for the pronouncement of sentence. The prosecution, which completed its argument earlier, has sought maximum punishment for the convicts.
All 15 accused in the case, namely Naisam, Ajmal, Anoop, Mohammed Aslam, Abdul Kalam alias Salam, Abdul Kalam, Saffaruddin, Manshad, Jaseeb Raja, Navas, Sameer, Nazir, Zakir Hussain, Shaji Poovathungal, and Shernas Ashraf, were found guilty by the court. The convicts, hailing from various parts of Alappuzha, were affiliated with the now-outlawed Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political arm, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).
The first eight accused, who directly took part in the murder act were found guilty under Sections 302 (murder), 149 (unlawful assembly), 449 (house trespass to commit offense punishable with death), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 341 (wrongful restraint) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The accused nine to 12, who stood guard outside the BJP’s leader’s house with deadly weapons when the assailants committed the crime, were convicted under Sections 302 r/w 149 and 447 (criminal trespass) of the IPC. The key conspirators, Zakir (13th accused), Shaji (14th accused), and Shernas (15th accused), were found guilty of criminal conspiracy and murder under IPC Sections 120 B and 302, respectively.
The prosecution presented its case, stating that Ranjeet, the BJP's OBC Morcha State secretary, and a lawyer, was brutally murdered at his residence in Vellakinar, Alappuzha municipality, on December 19, 2021, in the presence of his mother, wife, and young daughter.
Investigation officials suggest that Ranjeet's killing was a retaliatory act to the murder of SDPI's State Secretary K S Shan at Kuppezham Junction, Mannancherry, Alappuzha, the night before. This retaliation was triggered by the earlier killing of RSS worker Nandukrishna by SDPI members in Vayalar, Alappuzha, on February 24, 2021.
Notably, the trial for the Shan murder case is yet to commence. Throughout the trial, the court recorded statements from 156 witnesses, while the prosecution also submitted approximately 1,000 documents and 100 material objects as evidence. A hit list discovered on Anoop's mobile phone, which included the names of various individuals, including Ranjeet, targeted for a retaliatory strike, proved to be the most crucial evidence.
