Attappadi tribal lynching case: Kerala court finds 14 guilty, acquits 2

The accused, mostly local traders and drivers, were chargesheeted under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections on murder, abduction, kidnapping to murder, kidnapping to wrongfully confine a person, assault, causing injury with weapons, unlawful assembly and rioting with weapons as well as the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act sections.

The incident shook the conscience of Kerala society. A few members of the mob had captured the incident on their phones, with one of them even clicking a selfie while Madhu was being beaten up. Though the mob handed him over to the Agali police in Palakkad, he died on the way to the hospital.

The trial, which began last year at a special court at Mannarkkad in Palakkad, witnessed unprecedented developments. During the much-delayed trial, three prosecution lawyers pulled out of the case, and 22 of the 27 prosecution witnesses turned hostile.

The victim’s family, comprising his mother and two sisters, and the prosecution witnesses had faced threats from the accused, which prompted the trial court to cancel the bail of 12 of the 16 alleged accused. The court had found that the accused had violated bail conditions by contacting “the witnesses over the phone on several occasions”.

Madhu, a school dropout, lived in a cave in the nearby forest at his Attappadi village Chindakki and used to stray into the hamlet in search of a fistful of rice. After the incident exposed the failure of schemes for tribal welfare, the state government gave Madhu’s family a compensation of Rs 18.25 lakh.