The Kollam District Sessions Court on Friday sentenced to life imprisonment all the nine accused in the Kadavoor Jayan murder case. While accused 1 to 6 were imposed a fine of ₹71,500, others were asked to pay ₹61,500.
According to the chargesheet, Jayan was hacked to death by the accused, all of them RSS workers, on February 7, 2012, following political differences. The court has punished the convicts under Sections 143, 144, 146, 147, 148 (all related to forming an unlawful assembly with deadly weapons for common objective) 302 (murder) and 149 (vicarious liability of the members of the said assembly) of IPC. If they fail to remit the penalty, the accused will have to undergo additional term.
Compensation
Out of the fine, ₹2 lakh will be paid to Ambika Amma, mother of the deceased and ₹25,000 to Raghunathan Pillai, Jayan’s brother-in-law, who sustained injuries in the attack, as compensation.
Vinod, Gopakumar, Subramanian, Priyarajan, Pranav, Arun, Ranjith, Dinaraj and Shiju are the nine accused in the case. Since they were not armed at the time of attack, Section 148 of IPC was not invoked against accused 7, 8 and 9.
The prosecution had produced 23 witnesses, 75 documents, and 38 exhibits during the trial.
The deceased had 51 wounds on him and the Kollam Additional Sessions Court had earlier sentenced all the accused to life imprisonment. But they had appealed to the High Court and the final hearing was moved to the District Sessions Court.
