KOCHI : In a major development, crucial documents submitted by the police in the murder of Maharajas College student Abhimanyu were found missing from Ernakulam District Principal Sessions Court. After the matter was reported to the Kerala High Court, a direction was given to the Principal Sessions Court to recreate the missing documents.
When the case was considered for framing charges against the accused persons in November 2023, as many as 11 documents were found missing from the court. The missing documents include the chargesheet, case particulars with covering letter, attested copy of register of property found in prison search, postmortem report, police intimation to a person named Arjun, casualty register and hospital card of a person named Vineeth, wound certificate of Rahul K, 15 customer application forms submitted to procure SIM cards, site plan, certificate issued from Maharajas College and 161 CrPC statement by accused persons during the interrogation.
After finding that the documents were missing, the court directed its staff to conduct a thorough search which did not yield any results.
On December 1, 2023 Ernakulam District Principal Sessions Court informed the matter to Kerala High Court. The Kerala High Court directed the district court to reconstruct the missing documents.
Ernakulam District Principal Sessions Court recently issued a notice to the prosecution and accused persons in the case informing them about the missing documents and asked them to submit any objection in case they have any opposition to the reconstruction of missing documents. The missing of documents delayed further proceedings in the case and police have apprehensions that the defence side would be challenging the authenticity of missing documents during the trial stage.
Abhimanyu, 20, a resident of Vattavada in Idukki and a second-year degree student of Maharajas College, was stabbed at midnight following a clash between SFI and Campus Front activists on July 2, 2018.
There are 26 accused persons in the case, including 16 who were directly involved in the murder. The case is still pending for trial at the court.
Interestingly, the documents went missing from the court of the same judge, who while serving as Additional District Sessions judge, conducted the trial in the actor abduction and rape case involving actor Dileep. Then the prosecution had alleged that digital evidence in the custody of the court was accessed by someone as its hash values were found changed.