NIA court in Kerala sentences three to life imprisonment in professor hand-chopping case

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 of attempted murder, conspiracy, and various other violations under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Explosive Substances Act in the second phase of the trial in the case.

Moideen Kunju, Ayoob and Noushad were sentenced to three years imprisonment. However, since they already spent time in jail during their remand period, they will be released. The court also ordered the convicts to pay Joseph a sum of ₹4 lakh.

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

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The provocation

According to the prosecution, Joseph set a “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.

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The trial of the case

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.

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.

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Examined over 300 witnesses

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.

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.

(With PTI inputs)