KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday acquitted 13 RSS workers convicted by the Additional District and Sessions Court in the case relating to the murder of CPM worker V V Vishnu near Kaithamukku in Thiruvananthapuram in April 2008. While acquitting them, the division bench observed that “political rivalry is a simmering cauldron of intrigue, spite and deceit, often spewing the venom of hatred in the form of mindless bloodshed”.
A bench comprising Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice C Jayachandran passed the order while allowing the appeals filed by the convicted RSS workers against the district court’s verdict. Except for two accused, all other accused were sentenced to separate life imprisonment by the sessions court.
The acquitted are Sivalal of Kadakampally, Santhosh of Vanchiyoor, Satheesh Kumar of Kadakampally, Satheesh of Vattiyoorkavu, Subhash Kumar of Ulloor, Biju Kumar of Palathara, Renjith Kumar of Manacaud, Bose, Harilal, Manoj and Balu Mahendran -- all four from Uliyazhthara -- Babin of Kadakampally and Vinod Kumar of Ulloor. Senior advocates B Raman Pillai and P Vijaya Bhanu, counsel for the convicts, submitted that the investigation was tainted from the very beginning and argued that the entire prosecution case against the accused was engineered to satisfy the ruling party’s diktats.
The bench observed that the prosecution had miserably failed to prove the incriminating circumstances against the accused. “The manner in which events were portrayed before the court smacks of a deliberate attempt to tutor witnesses and collect evidence to define a scripted story.