Kochi court finds 14 CPI(M) workers guilty of 2019 political murder of Youth Congress workers | India News

Those found guilty included former Uduma MLA K V Kunhiraman, who is also a member of CPI(M) Kasaragod district secretariat, CPI(M) Periya local committee member A P Peethambaran, Kanhangad block panchayat member K Manikandan, former local committee secretary N Balakrishnan and another local leader Raghavan Velutholly.

The twin murder of the Indian Youth Congress workers two months before the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 had rocked Kerala. State police had probed the political murders, but the families of the victims had approached the high court seeking a CBI probe.

The CPI(M) had claimed that the party cadres were not involved while the party-led government also had vehemently opposed the CBI probe.

However, in October 2019, the high court, while handing over the probe to the CBI, quashed the charge sheet submitted by the state police claiming that the investigating officer in the case had filed it without conducting “a proper and effective probe”, believing the version of the first accused “as the gospel of truth”.

“The investigating officer did not incline to question the forensic surgeon who conducted the autopsies showing the weapons, which had, no doubt, caused serious prejudice to the investigation,” the court in 2019 said.

Former CPI(M) legislator K V Kunhiraman was included in the list of the accused after CBI took up the probe. CBI had found that Kunhiraman had helped the assailants after the murders.

In December 2021, the state government had approached the Supreme Court challenging the CBI probe but its petition was dismissed.

However, even after the high court ordered the CBI probe, the state police had initially refused to hand over the case diary and details to the agency although they eventually did so on the court’s directions.