Chandrashekharan murder case: CPM leaders found guilty

KOCHI: The Marad Special Additional Sessions Court has found twelve of the accused guilty in the T P Chandrashekharan murder case.

Apart from the seven member gang that hacked the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader T P Chandrashekharan, three CPM leaders have also been found guilty. The sentence will be decided on Thursday, Special Court Judge R Narayana Pisharady said.

In a keenly-awaited verdict, the Special Court has acquitted 24 out of the 36 people accused in the case. CPM’s Kozikkode district secretariat member P Mohanan is among those acquitted by the Court. T P Chandrashekharan-—leader of RMP, a party formed by a breakaway group from CPM—was killed on May 4, 2012. The police had charged that the CPM leaders in the area conspired to kill T P Chandrashekharan.

But, CPM secretary Pinarayi Vijayan had ruled out his party’s involvement in the murder. However, with the needle of suspicion pointing to the party, the case attracted unprecedented media attention. After the current verdict, Vijayan said that the verdict will end the propaganda about CPM’s involvement in the conspiracy to murder the RMP leader.

While maintaining that she is not completely happy with the verdict, T P Chandrashekharan’s wife K K Rema said that the fact that three CPM local leaders—P K Kunjananthan, K C Ramachandran and Manoj—have been found guilty points to the conspiracy hatched by the CPM. “The 7 member gang that killed Chandrashekharan did not know him personally. They were acting on instructions from CPM leaders,” she said adding that she will appeal against the acquittal of other CPM leaders.