As court convicts 6 more, professor whose hand was chopped off says, ‘I bear no ill will against them’

Professor TJ Joseph

Special NIA court judge Anil K Bhaskar found six among them guilty, while acquitting five others.

MK Nassar, Sajil, Najeeb, MK Noushad, PP Moideen Kunju, and PM Ayoob were found guilty of offences under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA as well as for attempted murder, conspiracy, and various other offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Explosive Substances Act in the second phase of the trial in the case.

Among them, Nassar was found to be the mastermind of the attack.

The sentences will be awarded on Thursday.

In the first phase of the trial in the case, 10 people were convicted for offences under the UAPA, the Explosive Substances Act, and the IPC, and three others were found guilty of harbouring the offenders.

Also read: NIA raids 56 houses of leaders of banned PFI in Kerala

The latest order

In the latest order, the court noted that the second accused, Sajil, took part in the attack while the third accused, Nasar, who was the main conspirator in the case, and the fifth accused, Najeeb, planned the “terrorist act” but did not take part in it.

Three others — Noushad, Moideen Kunju, and Ayoob — were found guilty by the court for intentionally not giving information about a crime and harbouring offenders under the IPC.

The special court acquitted the remaining five accused — Azeez Odakali, Shefeeq, Muhammed Rafi, Subair, and Mansoor.

There were 54 accused in the case, of whom 37 were named in the charge sheet, and 31 faced trial in the first phase as the others were on the run.

Charges could not be framed against the other accused till were not caught.

During the first phase of trial proceedings, the court examined over 300 prosecution witnesses, four defence witnesses, over 950 prosecution documents, nearly 30 defence documents, and over 200 material objects before delivering its verdict in April 2015.

Back then, it convicted 10 people under the UAPA, the Explosive Substances Act, and the IPC, and found three others guilty of harbouring the offenders. The court acquitted 18 others.

Related: Why TJ George blames Christians more for his trauma

‘No ill will’

The attack occurred while Joseph was returning home with his family after attending a Sunday mass at a church in Muvattupuzha in the Ernakulam district.

The attackers pulled the professor out of the vehicle, assaulted him, and then chopped off his right hand. The chopping was done by the main accused, Savad, who is still absconding.

According to the initial probe by the police, the accused wanted to kill Joseph for what they deemed were “derogatory religious remarks” in a question paper he set for the BCom semester examination at Newman College.

Joseph was then a professor and the head of the Malayalam Department at Newman College in Thodupuzha in central Kerala.

The retired professor on Wednesday declared that he bore no ill will against his attackers, whose actions led to a series of unfortunate developments in his life, which included impairing the functioning of the reattached hand, excommunication from the church to which he was affiliated, sacking from his job, and the suicide of his wife.

Joseph said he firmly believed that his life was not destroyed by what happened 13 years ago, but admitted that it did undergo some changes and he did suffer some losses.

‘Actual culprits yet to be caught’

The professor, who wrote an award-winning autobiography using his left hand, told reporters that those who were caught and convicted in the case “were only the weapons” and the actual culprits behind the act were yet to be found.

He opined that the judgement was only the implementation of the law prevailing in the country, and did not amount to justice for the victim.

“I have never believed that punishing an accused amounts to justice dispensation to the victim. It is a mistaken belief. So, whether they (accused in the case) were convicted or acquitted, I do not care either way,” he continued.

“They are victims of their beliefs, which led them to attack me, and now they are facing the consequences for the same,” he said.

If this belief system did not change, such incidents might occur in the future, said Joseph when reporters continued to ask him about the intolerance that propelled the heinous act against him.

“I am not scared. I lived my life on my terms and will continue to do so. If an accused has not been caught, it only indicates a system failure,” he said.

Also read: NIA arrests PFI master weapons trainer living in Karnataka

In court and public 

A file picture of Joseph with wife Salomi, who committed suicide unable to withstand the sufferings.

According to the prosecution, Joseph set the “controversial” question in a paper for an internal exam in Malayalam for second-semester BCom students after selecting a passage from a book on cinema by fellow CPI(M) activist and award-winning filmmaker PT Kunju Muhammed. That was in March 2010.

In the controversial question, a person with schizophrenia asks Padachon — the Malayalam substitute for Allah or God — a stupid question.

In response, God calls the man the son of a dog, a common insult in Malayalam. Dogs, however, are considered unclean in Islam.

Though that was a passage taken from the book by Kunju Muhammed, the man speaking to God was unnamed in the original text. The man was named Muhammad in the examination paper set by Joseph.

This led to the interpretation that the Muslim community and its central text, the Quran, had been disrespected by the Christian professor, and that too before several students hailing from different religious backgrounds.

Some people allegedly cooked up a story of blasphemy around the question paper and leaked it to a section of the media.

A prominent Malayalam television channel, which ceased operations four years ago for want of funds, telecast a sensational “exclusive” news item claiming the Muhammed mentioned in the question paper was the Islamic Prophet and that the Christian professor had wilfully engaged in character assassination of the founder of Islam.

The fake news led to large-scale protests across the state, and the PFI and other radical Islamic outfits were furious.

Also read: PFI dissolved, as Opposition parties deem ban ‘biased’

The attack

Joseph told South First earlier that he had no clue that the portion used in the question paper would be considered blasphemous. He said he just explored the satiric element in the text.

He also said the name Muhammad was chosen because it was also the name of the author of the essay, Kunju Muhammed.

Moreover, the book was on the recommended reading list for Malayalam graduate and postgraduate students.

After the question paper courted controversy, Joseph had to go underground. He had to run from one city to the other to dodge arrest.

Though he was eventually arrested from a Muslim-run lodge in Palakkad, he was soon released on bail.

But Joseph had no job to return to as the church had instructed the college to dismiss him.

In the subsequent months, he had to endure three attempts on his life. The fourth time, Joseph was returning home after church services on 4 July, 2010, with his mother and sister when a 13-member gang waylaid his car.

As the vehicle was locked from the inside, the attackers broke a glass window and pulled Joseph out. Then they assaulted him and severed his hand.

The hand was reattached through a complex medical procedure within hours of the incident, and the inhuman act by radical Islamic elements elicited large-scale condemnation and caused a sensation at the national and international levels.

The aftermath

During the trial’s first phase, the court completely exonerated Joseph of the charge of blasphemy.

It stated unequivocally that the Muhammad he mentioned in a college examination question paper had nothing to do with the Islamic prophet.

However, a letter circulated among the laity in 120 churches around Joseph’s residence — and read out at Sunday mass — said the assault did not absolve Joseph of his wrongs, such as insulting another religion.

The litigation Joseph initiated against his college to get re-employed ran for four years without reaching any resolution and severely dented his family savings.

As a result, his wife Salomi went into depression and ended her life in their house in March 2014, exactly a week before Joseph was officially due to retire.

It was her suicide that caused widespread public anger against the college, and, finally, the church allowed him to return to work for just one day: The day of his retirement.

That day’s work protected him from a unilateral termination and helped him access retirement benefits. Using the retirement benefits, he renovated the house and ensured his son and daughter had a better education.

Though his right hand was reattached, Joseph still could not use it freely: He wrote the manuscript of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award-winning book for the Best Autobiography in Malayalam using only his left hand.