A Kerala court has sentenced to death 15 workers of the now-banned Islamist outfit Popular Front Of India (PFI) in connection with the murder of BJP state leader Ranjith Sreenivasan, who was killed in front of his family in December 2021.
The then BJP OBC Morcha state secretary and lawyer Ranjith Sreenivasan was killed by the accused belonging to the Popular Front of India and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) near his house at Vellakinar junction in Alappuzha municipality in December 19, 2021 in front of his mother, wife and daughter.
The court had on Saturday found guilty the 15 accused persons -- all linked to PFI-SDPI -- behind the murder of BJP leader Ranjith Sreenivasan.
The 15 accused who are convicted in the murder case are Naisam, Ajmal, Anoop, Mohammed Aslam, Abdul Kalam alias Salam, Abdul Kalam, Saffaruddin, Manshad, Jaseeb Raja, Navas, Sameer, Nazir, Abdul Kalam, Zakir Hussain, Shaji and Shernas Ashraf.
The Mavelikara Additional District Session Court-I Judge Sreedevi V found the first eight accused guilty under Section 302 (punishment for murder).
According to the charge sheet, Sreenivasan was murdered in retaliation to the murder of SDPI’s State Secretary KS Shan, a report in The New Indian Express mentioned.
There reportedly were 156 prosecution witnesses in the case.
The prosecution produced around 1,000 documents and 100 material objects in the court, the report said.
The prosecution had sought the maximum sentence for the convicts, saying that they were a "trained killer squad" and the cruel and diabolical manner in which the victim was killed in front of his mother, infant, and wife brings it within the ambit of the "rarest of the rarest" of crimes.
(with PTI inputs)
