Kozhikode: Nine gets life term in ‘moral policing’ murder case

A 15-member gang, which waited outside the woman’s house, tied the youth to an electric post and hit him with rods and sticks. The gang did not allow the local people to take him to hospital. Finally, police took him to hospital, but Bava died three days after.

Delivering the verdict, judge S Krishnakumar observed that people don’t have the right to punish a person on charges of a moral crime. The mob slapping moral crime on a person and punishing him for the same would destroy the judicial system in the country, the court observed.

The court ordered that the first, third and fourth accused should pay a fine of Rs 25,000 each and other convicted persons pay Rs 50,000 each. The family of the victim should be given Rs 2 lakh as compensation.

Police had found that the accused gang, which acted as moral police in their village, had maintained secrete relationships with many women. This was revealed in the scrutiny of the mobile phone call details of the accused.

A few of the accused had harboured a grudge towards Bava alleging that he had attempted to hit them with his car. They conspired to trap Bava in a moral case. The fourth accused, an auto driver, took Bava to the house of the woman late night. After dropping Bava at the house, the auto driver alerted others, who were waiting outside the house. When Bava returned from the woman’s house, the gang pounced on him. After tying him to an electric post, they savagely attacked the youth.

The prosecution had arraigned 15 persons as the accused. One of them is still absconding. Of the 14 accused, the court acquitted five.

Deceased Bava, working in Gulf, was on a leave. The woman was a housewife and mother of a girl.