Ranjith Sreenivas murder case: death penalty for 10th accused

The Mavelikara Additional District Sessions Court-I on Friday awarded the death penalty to the 10th accused in the murder of BJP leader Ranjith Sreenivas.

The convict, Navas, 52, is a native of Palace Ward in Alappuzha municipality. Earlier, on January 30, 2024, the court had awarded the death penalty to 14 of the 15 convicts in the case. Though the court had found Navas guilty of the charges against him, it had not pronounced his sentence at the time as he was undergoing medical treatment at a hospital.

On Friday, Judge V.G. Sreedevi sentenced Navas, who was produced via video conferencing, to be hanged by the neck till death.

Sreenivas, a lawyer and the State secretary of the BJP’s front for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), was brutally hacked to death at his house at Vellakinar in Alappuzha municipality on the morning of December 19, 2021. He was murdered in front of his mother, wife, and daughter.

All the 15 convicts, hailing from various parts of Alappuzha, belonged to the now proscribed Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political arm, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).

According to investigators, Sreenivas’ killing was a retaliatory strike to avenge the previous night’s murder of the SDPI’s State secretary K.S. Shan at Kuppezham Junction at Mannancherry, Alappuzha, allegedly by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activists.

The Sreenivas murder case was investigated by a special team led by then Alappuzha Deputy Superintendent of Police N.R. Jayaraj. Prosecution side was represented by Special Public Prosecutor Prathap G. Padickkal.