The Additional Sessions Court I here sentenced eight persons to imprisonment for life after they were found guilty of lynching a mentally challenged man at Peruvambu in the district. Rajendran, 34, son of Ponnan from Peruvambu, died after he was tied to a post and thrashed by the convicts on the night of February 18, 2010.
He had been under treatment for mental disorder for several years. The convicts attacked him on the presumption that he was responsible for burning down a shed at Peruvambu.
Additional Sessions Court I judge Vinayaka Rao sentenced Vijayan, 53, Kunjappan, 64, Babu, 50, Murugan, 44, Muthu, 74, Ramanan, 45, Muralidharan, 40, and Radhakrishnan, 61, to life in prison and slapped a fine of ₹10,000 on each of them under IPC Section 302 for murder.
It was proved in the court that the convicts had pulled out the victim from a house where he sought refuge, and tied him to a post and beat him repeatedly. Rajendran died by the next morning. There were about 30 wounds on his body and that he had suffered a heavy blow to his head.
The police had earlier filed a case for natural death. However, the police slapped murder charges on seven of the accused after the postmortem found that the victim had been beaten up. In 2011, Rajendran’s family approached the High Court and procured an order for further investigation. The eighth accused was included in the chargesheet after that.
In 2015, B. Ravikumar was appointed special prosecutor in the case. The trial of the case started in 2018. One key witness turned hostile during the trial. However, the court found that the hostile witness had lied in his testimony.
The accused approached the High Court twice seeking a retrial in the case; but the court rejected their demand.
