THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CBI Special Court here has found second accused Mohammed Ali guilty of murdering Shyamal Mandal, a final-year engineering student of College of Engineering Trivandrum, whose body was found dumped near Vellar in a putrefied state about 17 years ago.
Judge K Sanilkumar said the Andamans native was found guilty of murder, kidnap, criminal conspiracy and theft. The quantum of punishment will be announced on Wednesday. Ali is the second accused in the case, while the first accused, Durga Bahadur, is still at large.
The CBI argument was that Shyamal, who hailed from Andamans, was abducted by Ali and Durga on October 13, 2005, from East Fort. They demanded Rs 20 lakh as ransom from Shyamal’s father Basudev Mandal, who was as a government employee as well as a money lender in Andamans.
Basudev duly alerted the police about the extortion bid, following which a trap was laid for the kidnappers. Sensing that they could land in the police net, Shyamal was decapitated and the body abandoned near Vellar. When the body was recovered on October 23, 2005, it was in a putrefied state.
The case was initially probed by the local police and later it was handed over to the Crime Branch. The CBI took over the case in 2008, on the the High Court’s directive after Basudev filed a petition seeking a probe by the Central agency.
During the trial, Basudev told the court that he had identified his son’s body from the dress, shoes and two teeth, which were filled with amalgam. Basudev had lent money to Ali’s father and, due to that, Ali came to know that he had amassed a huge wealth. To get hold of money, Ali had hatched a plan with Durga and kidnapped the youth.
The CBI had relied on circumstantial evidence to prove the case as there were no eyewitnesses. The prosecution produced 78 material evidence and recorded statements of 53 witnesses.
Circumstantial evidence turned crucial
CBI prosecutor Arun K Antony said since there was no eyewitness to prove that Ali had kidnapped Shyamal, he had to rely on circumstantial evidence to prove the case. Statements of 53 witnesses were used to build the case. The mobile phone of the deceased was later recovered from Kesav Kumar Katwal, who was first arraigned as an accused. However, he was later discharged after it was found that he was not aware of the murder. Katwal was also listed as a prosecution witness and his statements were used to fill the missing links in the case. The call detail record (CDR) of Shyamal’s phone also came handy for the prosecution. Besides, the friends of Shyamal at CET identified Ali as the one who was seen with Shyamal. The witnesses from Chennai gave statements that they had seen Ali there after the crime, which also cemented the prosecution’s arguments.