Kerala: Same day, same district, two brutal assaults in public leave two dead

Manakkattu Veetil Shabeer, 23, of Vakkam was dragged off a two-wheeler, chased, caught and beaten mercilessly with a wooden shaft. A friend of his too was beaten up. Videos captured on a mobile phone went viral Monday, showing one of four attackers lifting up Shabeer’s leg so that the rest of his body would be exposed to the thrashing.
Vinod, 27, an auto driver and a local leader of CPM youth wing DYFI, was stabbed by a group of eight while taking a friend to hospital in Nedumangad town. The attackers were reportedly drunk and had taken offence at a question he had asked them. Police said three of the eight have a criminal background, all petty cases such as minor scuffles. Three other people sustained stab injuries.

According to police, Shabeer’s four attackers had an old grudge against Shabeer and his friend. The trigger came a year ago, when an elephant brought for a procession was allegedly provoked near a temple. “One of the four-member group was blamed for provoking the elephant, and they believed it was Shabeer who had pointed out this person. After that, there were skirmishes involving both sides. Recently, Shabeer was allegedly involved in an attack on the house of one member of the gang,” said DSP Prathapan Nair.

Shabeer and his friend, Unnikrishnan, had parked outside a shut railway gate when the four attackers, all in their early twenties, approached them on two bikes. They dragged them off the vehicle, then chased Shabeer. They hit him with the thick wooden sticking, felling him on the road, after which they thrashed him mindlessly for several minutes before leaving.

This was in full view of local people, who stayed indoors. They informed the police, who rushed the victims to the hospital. On Monday afternoon, Shabeer died of a head injury.

At Nedumangad, Vinod became the victim of a series of events that began with a drinking session, where he was not even present. According to police, the eight accused had attended a wedding and gone to a beer parlour, where one of them, Ranjith, cut his hand on a beer bottle that broke. The eight went to the hospital to dress the wound and picked a quarrel with others waiting to meet the doctor. Vinod had come to show his friend Anas to the doctor, with them were two more friends, Sagar and Shanavas. Vinod asked Ranjith how he had hurt his hand. Ranjith’s friends got angry, started quarreling and eventually stabbed Vinod and his friends. Vinod died early Monday morning while his friends are still under treatment.

Police sources said three of the eight were involved in petty criminal cases, but not in murder earlier. “The attack happened over a sudden impulse. The gang did not know their victims. They were provoked by the innocent question about the bleeding hand,’’ a police source said.