“Hiba Fathima, the 13-year-old daughter of my son, weeps and questions why justice for her father is elusive,” recounts Salim, the father of slain SDPI leader K.S. Shan.
A fresh political controversy surrounding the judiciary and the state government surfaced in Kerala’s Alappuzha district after the delay in the commencement of the trial and the appointment of a prosecutor in the murder case of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) leader K.S. Shan. The controversial imposition of the death penalty on 15 Muslims convicted in the murder case of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ranjith Sreenivasan added fuel to the fire.
After a comparatively swift trial, on January 30, 2024, Mavelikara Additional District Sessions Court-I Judge Sreedevi V.G. sentenced capital punishment to 15 individuals associated with the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political arm, SDPI, for their involvement in the murder of Ranjith. According to Kerala Police, BJP OBC morcha state secretary 40-year-old Advocate Ranjith was murdered on the morning of December 19, 2021, in retaliation for the murder of Shan.
38-year-old Shan, one of the five state secretaries of SDPI, was hacked to death on the night of December 18, 2021, by Hindu nationalists associated with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) after the car of the assailants knocked his bike down at Kuppezham Junction in Mannancherry, Alappuzha.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.