Controversial Kerala Prison dept letter on ‘release’ of T.P. Chandrasekharan murder case convicts sparks political row

A recent letter from the Kerala Prisons and Correctional Services department seeking a report on potential security issues central to the “possible release on parole” of Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] “activists” serving time for the 2012 murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader T.P. Chandrasekharan in Kozhikode has sparked a political row in Kerala. 

RMP leader and Chandrasekharan’s wife, K.K. Rema, MLA, told reporters in Kozhikode that the wording of the letter was intriguing. “It does not mention parole. It says release (viduthal). The letter is the latest in a series of sly attempts by the CPI(M) to circumvent the Kerala High Court’s order that the convicts serve a minimum of 20 years before the government entertains any plea for the remission of their life sentence”, she said.

Balram Kumar Upadhyay, Director General of Prisons, told The Hindu that the letter had its legal basis in a recent court order.

He said the Additional Sessions Court at Thalassery in Kannur had on October 8 acquitted 12 persons accused of the 2010 New Mahe double murder of two Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) workers, Vijith and Shinoj. 

He said several of the acquitted persons were serving time in the Kannur prison after the Kerala High Court upheld their conviction in the TP murder case.

Mr. Upadhyay said the parole application by certain TP case convicts raised specific security concerns, including a possible threat to their lives and political peace if released on parole. He said the Prisons department had acted legally by seeking an opinion from the jail superintendent and the district police chief.

‘Preserve of government’

Another prison official said granting parole was the “preserve of the government”, based on recommendations from the district magistrate and the Home department. “The Prisons department had only an advisory role in the matter”, he said.

The “liberal” grant of parole and other “privileges”, including wellness treatment at Ayurveda centres and allegedly unrestricted access to mobile phones, visitors and “home food” for the TP case convicts, was a central sore point between the government and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition.

Recently, the Congress raised a furore in the Assembly after surveillance footage of the TP case convicts consuming alcohol at a bar hotel while being escorted by the police for a court hearing went viral.

Discomfittingly for the CPI(M), the State police had accused specific TP case convicts of running an extensive criminal enterprise from inside the prison walls, including protection rackets and the waylaying of smugglers to seize their contraband, chiefly gold, in north Kerala.