The District Additional Sessions Court of Kannur (Kerala) has acquitted nine BJP-RSS workers in the 2015 CPM worker’s murder case. The court gave the verdict citing serious flaws in the police investigation.
The case is of 25 February 2015, when CPM worker O. Preman (45) was attacked. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, where he died the next day.
Police had registered a case against several accused in this case under the sections of UAPA and IPC. However, initially there was a delay in filing the FIR and the six people who were first nominated were later removed. The current accused were later involved in the case.
The acquitted accused include Sajesh C, Prajesh D, Inchikandi Nishant, Lijin P, Manapadi Vinesh, C Rajish, Nikhil N, R Ramesh and Rejith CV. At the same time, the second accused in this case, Shyam Prasad, was killed in another political violence in 2018.
Defense lawyers argued that the presence of the accused on the spot could not be proved. The court also acquitted the accused on this basis after investigating the witnesses and documents.
The hearing of the case started from March 2024, in which 65 witnesses were produced and 135 documents were kept in the court as evidence.