“Kerala Court Sentences 15 PFI-Linked Men to Death for Murdering BJP Leader Ranjith Sreenivasan”
A Kerala court issued death sentences to 15 individuals linked to the banned Islamic group Popular Front of India (PFI) for the murder of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) OBC wing leader Ranjith Sreenivasan in Alappuzha district in December 2021. Mavelikkara additional district judge VG Sreedevi pronounced the sentence, according to news agency PTI.
The prosecution pressed for the harshest punishment for the convicted individuals, arguing that they operated as a “trained killer squad” and the brutal and heinous nature of the victim’s murder, witnessed by his mother, infant, and wife, qualifies it as one of the “rarest of the rare” crimes.
In the Ranjith Sreenivasan murder case, the BJP OBC Morcha state secretary was viciously assaulted and killed in his residence on December 19, 2021, in the presence of his family, purportedly by activists associated with PFI and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).
On January 20, the court determined that among the 15 individuals accused in the case, the first eight were directly implicated. Additionally, it found four individuals (accused numbers nine to 12) guilty of murder because they arrived at the scene armed with lethal weapons alongside those directly involved in the crime.
Their intention was to prevent Sreenivasan from escaping and to block anyone from entering the house upon hearing his screams. The court agreed with the prosecution’s argument that they were also responsible for the collective crime of murder under IPC Section 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object).
Additionally, the court convicted three others (accused numbers 13 to 15) who had plotted the conspiracy to kill Sreenivasan, as stated by the SPP.
The murder of the BJP leader occurred shortly after SDPI leader KS Shan was killed by a group while returning home in Alappuzha on the night of December 18, 2021.