Gowtham K 

Kadavoor Jayan, an RSS worker, was stabbed to death near his own house in Kollam, Kerala. His brother-in-law Raghunatha Pillai was also attacked.

Kerala: Nine individuals belonging to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Kollam court in an eight-year-old-murder case concerning Kadavoor Jayan, who is also an RSS worker. All the nine convicts were also fined with an amount of Rs 71,500 each, failing to pay which will cost them four more years in prison. Kollam Principal Sessions Court judge Suresh Kumar C, announced the verdict via video conferencing since two of the convicts had tested positive to COVID-19.

From the amount collected from the penalty, Rs 2 lakh shall be given to Jayan’s mother and Rs 25,000 to Raghunatha Pillai, Jayant’s brother-in-law, who was also attacked in the incident.

According to the verdict, the seventh, eighth and ninth accused will not get punishment under Section 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon) since they had not used weapons to attack the victims. The nine convicts have been identified as Vinod, Gopal Kumar, Subrahmanyan, Priyaraj, Pranav, Arun, Rajineesh, Dinaraj and Shiju.

Jayan was stabbed to death near his house at the Kadavoor point in Kollam on January 7, 2012. He was killed after he filed a complaint against the accused alleging that the latter took part in arms training on the premises of a temple, police said. Vinod – the prime accused – was initiated into the party by the victim. Jayan himself. However, relations began to deteriorate due to arguments over activities at Thrikadavur Mahadeva Temple, where Jayan was President of Advisory Committee. 

His brother-in-law Raghunatha Pillai was also injured in the attack. Jayan had received 50 wounds in his body. 

The prosecution presented 23 witnesses, 75 proofs and 38 pieces of material evidence while the defence examined 20 witnesses.

This is the second time that the accused are sentenced to life for the same murder case. The Kollam Additional Court Session had awarded life imprisonment to all the accused, earlier. However, the accused decided to approach the High Court claiming that they did not get a chance to make a final argument then.

The case was then transferred to Kollam Sessions Court to hear the final argument of the case. During the final argument of the case, the advocate of the suspects tried their way best in making the suspects escape the case. After a long and fiery argument, the suspects failed to prove that they are innocent. Finally, the court found them guilty of murder.