The Kerala High Court on Tuesday awarded life imprisonment without remission to nine convicts in the T P Chandrasekharan murder case.

A division bench comprising Justice A K Jayasaniaran Nambiar and Justice Kauser Edappagath also sentenced three convicts (K K Krishnan, Geothi Babu, P V Rafeek) to life imprisonment without curtailing their right to remission.

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The nine convicts sentenced without remission are Anoop, Manoj Kumar, N K Sunil Kumar (Kodi Suni), Rajesh Thundikkandi, K K Muhammed Shafi, Sijith S, K Shinoj, K C Ramachandran, and Manojan.

These convicts have been awarded the punishment for the offences of murder and criminal conspiracy under Sections 300 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code, respectively.

The court observed that it was not sufficient to impose a simple life imprisonment sentence to the convicts, given the barbaric nature of the crime.

“The barbaric nature of the crime where an unarmed man was hacked to death on a highway by six armed assailants who had no known enmity against him but were mere assassins and co-conspirators need to be condemned in a befitting manner. Showing undue leniency to the accused in such a case will undermine public confidence in the efficacy of our legal system,” the court said.

“We are of the view that a sum of Rs 7.5 lakh to the wife and Rs 5 lakh to the son of the deceased would be reasonable and adequate,” it said.

Chandrasekharan, a former member of the CPI-(M) and founded the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP), was murdered in 2012 near Onchiyam in Vatakara in Kozhikode district.

The prosecution’s case was that the assailants were hired by certain CPI-M functionaries to eliminate Chandrasekharan who posed a challenge to the party’s influence in the area.