Kasaragod: The special CBI court in Ernakulam is set to deliver its verdict on Saturday, December 28, in the high-profile double murder case of Youth Congress workers Kripesh (21) and Sarathlal P K (23), allegedly involving CPM leaders and workers.

Judge Seshadrinathan N has directed all the accused to appear in court on the day of the verdict. The CBI's prosecution team was led by its Public Prosecutor, Bobby Joseph Y.

The 24 accused include CPM Kasaragod district secretariat member and former MLA K V Kunhiraman and CPM leader and Kanhangad Block Panchayat president K Manikandan.

Kripesh and Sarathlal -- two active and popular Youth Congress workers -- were brutally hacked to death at Kalliyot near Kasaragod's Periya on February 17, 2019, during the build-up to the Lok Sabha elections.

The double murder jolted the state, prompting Congress to mount one of its most intense campaigns against political violence. The CPM, reeling from the fallout, suffered a crushing defeat in the elections, with the Left front losing 19 of the 20 seats in Kerala that year.

The LDF government's police filed the charge sheet after conducting a sloppy investigation, forcing the families of the deceased youths to approach the High Court seeking a CBI investigation. The court quashed the charge sheet and ordered a CBI investigation.

The state government spent more than Rs 3 crore of public money and went to the Supreme Court to block the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from probing the case involving CPM leaders and workers. Later, when the CBI arranged for its top leaders to be involved in the case, the CPM publicly announced that it would provide legal assistance to the accused.

The accused
The CBI has named 24 persons as accused in the case. They were: CPM Periya local committee member A Peethambaran (accused no. 1), Saji C George, Suresh K M, Anil Kumar K, Gijin, son of a businessman who funds CPM, Sreerag R, Ashwin A, CITU worker A Subeesh, who fled abroad after the crime, Murali A, Ranjith T alias Appu, Pradeepan alias Kuttan, Manikandan B alias Alakode Mani, CPM's Periya local secretary N Balakrishnan (accused no. 13), DYFI leader and Kanhangad block panchayat president K Manikandan (accused no. 14), A Surendran alias Vishnu Sura, Madhu A alias Sastha Madhu, Gijin's paternal uncle, Regi Varghese, Hariprasad A (accused no. 18, who was given a job in a CPM-run cooperative bank), CPM's Echiladukkam branch secretary Rajesh P alias Raju (A19), Kasaragod district secretariat member and former MLA K V Kunhiraman (A20); Raghavan Velutholy, K V Bhaskaran, Gopakumar V alias Gopan Velutholy, and Sandeep P V alias Sandeep Velutholy (A24).

What led to the killing
People's Co-Operative Arts and Science at Munnad, a CPM bastion in Kasaragod's Bedadka panchayat—where the CPM holds all 17 wards—often saw skirmishes primarily because of SFI's intolerance towards other student organisations. The CPM's students' organisation cannot stand AISF, its ally, and the CPI's students' organisation at Munnad College. But when KSU put up resistance, they were thrashed.

When Kripesh and Sarathlal took up the KSU's fight, CPM workers led by A Peethambaran, a member of CPM's Periya Local Committee, intervened. In one such instance, on January 5, 2019, Kripesh and Sarathlal allegedly twisted Peethambaran's arm. According to CPM supporters, they broke his arm, for which the two youths were remanded in judicial custody.

According to the CBI, the Youth Congress workers' murders were a culmination of "a clash between SFI and KSU workers at Munnad college and to prevent the active work of Sarathlal and Kripesh for Indian National Congress among the people in the locality."

The Plot
According to the CBI, accused one to nine, and Pradeepan and Surendran (A15), Madhu (A16), Regi Varghese (A17), Hariprasad (A18), and Rajesh (A19) met at Echiladukkam bus stop near Periya and plotted to murder Kripesh and Sarathlal.

They decided to kill them on February 17, 2019, when the two would return from a meeting of a temple reception committee. The CBI told the court that the accused formed different groups with specific roles, such as a hit team, surveillance, logistics, a getaway crew, and a team tasked with destroying evidence.

At 7.36 pm, Kripesh and Sarathlal left the temple ground on a motorcycle. Kripesh was driving, and Sarathlal was riding a pillion. As the two approached the arecanut grove of Gijin, accused one to eight jumped onto the road and blocked their path by striking the motorcycle with a rod, the CBI said.

"Accused no. 4 Anil Kumar struck Kripesh on the head with a sword, inflicting a deep wound. Anil Kumar, Suresh, and Aswin then attacked Sarathlal with their swords," according to CBI's court document.

A bleeding Kripesh ran from the spot towards his house through the rocky terrain. He collapsed after running 177 meters. Sarathlal was found near the motorcycle with 20 injuries, including 14 cut wounds on the head, face and right hand. The two succumbed to the injuries.

Roles of top CPM leaders
According to the CBI, Murali A (A9), Manikandan B alias Alakode Mani (A12), CPM local secretary Balakrishnan N (A13), Kanhangad Block President K Manikandan (A14), Gopakumar V (A23) and Sandeep P V (A24) helped harbour accused one to eight at CPM's office at Chattanchal after knowing they murdered Kripesh and Sarathlal.

Murali, Manikandan B, Balakrishnan N and K Manikandan also concealed and destroyed the blood-stained clothes of the accused, the CBI told the court. Gopakumar V and Sandeep P V also helped Subeesh, a CITU worker who had never left the country, flee to the UAE and remain there for nearly three months.

He mysteriously returned and courted arrest a day before the charge sheet was filed. Police did not ask for his custody to inquire how he managed to go abroad and where he stayed during the police investigation.

Role of K V Kunhiraman
According to the CBI, the former MLA and CPM District Secretariat member K V Kunhiraman (A20), K Manikandan (A14), Raghavan (A21), and Bhaskaran (A22) rescued accused no. 2 Saji C George from the custody of Bekal police on the intervening night of February 18 and 19.

The CBI told the court that Bekal police detained Saji George and kept him in a police jeep at the Pakom-Cherootta forest area. But the four accused, led by Kunhiraman, forcibly rescued Saji George from police custody.

Main accused never got bail
Sixteen of the 24 accused who were arrested remained in prison throughout the trial. Though several applications were moved by accused no. 1 to 11 and accused no. 15 to 19, the trial court and the High Court of Kerala rejected them. High Court even observed in a bail application order that this was "a case fit for custodial trial".

Govt assistance & resistance
The CPM-led Kasaragod District Panchayat had given temporary jobs to the wives of the first four accused in the District Hospital. The spouses gave up their jobs after their appointments became public and controversial.

But before that, the government went on its limb to stop the CBI from taking over the case despite the High Court lampooning the police investigation. Before that, the police were accused of helping the culprits.

On February 17, the day the two youths were killed, Bekal Police registered an FIR under Section 302 of the IPC for murder. The very next day, the District Crime Branch, Kasaragod, took over the investigation. But the government handed over the case to the State Crime Branch, Malappuram Unit, on February 25.

The State Crime Branch filed the charge sheet against 14 accused before the Judicial First Class Magistrate’s Court, Hosdurg. But Kripesh and Sarathlal's families, represented by advocate K V Padmanabhan, approached the High Court with 11 reasons demanding a CBI investigation into the double murder case. On September 30, 2021, the High Court set aside the charge sheet filed by the Crime Branch and directed the CBI to take over the case.

Justice B Sudheendra Kumar observed that "the non-questioning of the forensic surgeon with reference to the weapons recovered is a circumstance indicating that there was no proper and effective investigation even in a case where two young persons were brutally murdered, as rightly submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioners".

The judge said that the investigating officer (Crime Branch DySP M Pradeep Kumar) filed the charge sheet preconceivedly, believing and accepting the version given by the first accused, Peethambaran, even without conducting a proper and effective investigation.

It further appears Peethambaran convened a meeting just one hour before the incident, and in that meeting, one Bijina Krishnan (charge witness no. 150) took part. Immediately after the meeting, Peethambaran also called Bijina Krishnan over the phone. "However, CW 150 was not made as a conspirator."

Based on the High Court order, the Special Crime Branch of CBI registered an FIR, but the state government approached the Division Bench of the High Court to quash the single bench order.

The Division Bench, on August 25, 2020, restored the charge sheet submitted by the Kerala Police but ordered CBI to conduct a further investigation "to instil confidence and also to do justice to the parties".

The state government then approached the Supreme Court, but the apex court said it was in agreement with the reasons given by the High Court for transferring the investigation to the CBI and directed the Kerala Police to hand over the case diary to the CBI.

Nearly two years after the double murder, reluctant police handed over the case diary and documents to CBI on December 10, 2020. A year later, CBI DySP T P Ananthakrishnan submitted the charge sheet, naming 10 new accused apart from the 14 listed by the State Crime Branch.

The CBI ripped apart the police investigation because it had named CPM workers such as CPM branch secretary Rajesh, Hariprasad and Reji Varghese, who were named as 'prosecution witnesses' by the State Crime Branch in its charge sheet submitted in May 2019. The trial in the case began on December 1, 2022.

True to the party's promise, the CPM enlisted top criminal lawyer C K Sreedharan — who had switched from Congress just two weeks prior — to defend nine key accused in the case. They included Peethambaran A (A1), Saji C George (A2), Suresh K M (A3), Anil Kumar K (A4), local secretary Balakrishnan N (A13), Kanhangad Block Panchayat President K Manikandan (A14), former MLA K V Kunhiraman (A20), Raghavan Velutholi (A21), and K V Bhaskaran (A22).

Taliparamba's Adv Nicholas Joseph, a party counsel, defended Gijin (A5), Shrirag R (A6) Aswin A (A7), CITU worker Subeesh (A8). The other defence lawyers in the case are Adv Sojan Michael, Adv Tom Jose, and Adv Abhishek Kurien.