Brother of Pinarayi Vijayan’s press secretary among 9 found guilty in 2005 murder of Kerala BJP worker

Those found guilty included T K Rajeesh, who is already undergoing life imprisonment in the 2012 murder of rebel Marxist leader T P Chandrasekharan, and P M Manoraj, the brother of P M Manoj, Vijayan’s press secretary.

The court also convicted Prabhakaran Master, a former local secretary of the CPI(M) and former president of Edakkad panchayat, and two CPI(M) local committee members, K V Padmanabhan and Manombeth Radhakrishnan. According to the prosecution, BJP worker Elambilayi Sooraj (32) was hacked to death on August 7, 2005, by CPI(M) men at Muzhappilangad in the district. The CPI(M) had developed a grudge towards Sooraj after he quit the party in 2003 and joined the BJP.

Special public prosecutor P Premarajan said that a year before the murder, Sooraj had survived another murder attempt in which he had sustained serious injuries. CPI(M)’s local leaders Prabhakaran, Padmanabhan and Radhakrishnan (who were found guilty in the murder case) were also the accused in that case.

Sooraj had been indisposed after the first attack and faced the second deadly attack soon after he resumed everyday life.

As per the charge sheet, on August 5, 2005, five accused persons (including the three local party leaders) entered into a criminal conspiracy to eliminate Sooraj. “On August 7, the six accused persons came by an autorickshaw driven by one of the accused, formed an unlawful assembly as part of the conspiracy… They assaulted Sooraj using deadly weapons,’’ said the chargesheet.

It said the victim had tried to run away seeing the assailants but fell on the road. Subsequently, accused N V Yogesh hacked his neck with a sword and accused Rajeesh attacked his head with an axe.

Although the trial in the case had begun in 2010, it did not proceed. The case got a new twist in 2012 after the arrest of a CPI(M)-backed gang leader, T K Rajeesh, in the murder of T P Chandrasekharan, who had left CPI(M) and formed a rebel outfit.Rajeesh confessed to his involvement in other political murders, including that of Sooraj. Until the murder of Chandrasekharan, the role of Rajeesh in political murders in Kannur had never come to the fore. Following the revelation, police reopened the Sooraj murder at the behest of a high court directive.