CPM behind death of Morcha man’s murder accused: Family

The mother of Karayi Sajeevan, named as seventh accused in the case pertaining to the brutal murder of Yuva Morcha’s Kerala vice-president KT Jayakrishnan in Kannur in 1999, has alleged that the CPI(M) was behind her son’s death.

Sajeevan, a CPI(M) worker, was found dead on the railway tracks in Mahe in 2003. The death was then considered as a case of suicide.

Kamala, Sajeevan’s mother, submitted a memorandum to Rahul R Nair, Superintendent of Police, Kannur requesting a thorough investigation into her son’s death. “My son wouldn’t commit suicide. He had nothing to do with Jayakrishnan’s murder. He became an accused just because his party trapped him in the case,” Kamala said.

Sajeevan was found dead on the night of August 11, 2003 just 15 days before a court in Thalassery sentenced five of the accused to death. “He had told me he was going to tell the court the whole truth but he had not divulged it to us. That he might spill the beans could have scared the CPI(M) and this could have led to his death,” Kamala said.

The family’s allegation against the CPI(M) has come in the context of the revelation by TK Rajeesh, a key accused in the May 4 murder of Marxist rebel TP Chandrasekharan of Onchiyam, Kozhikode, that those listed as accused, except one, in the Jayakrishnan murder case were not the actual culprits. The police had made the arrests as per a list provided by the CPI(M), he said.

Jayakrishnan, a primary school teacher, was brutally hacked and chopped to death by a CPI(M) killer gang in front of his students in a classroom at his school in Panur, Kannur on the morning of December 1, 1999. According to Rajeesh, he himself was a member of the gang that murdered Jayakrishnan.

The police had arrested seven Marxists in connection with Jayakrishnan’s murder (but Sajeevan died during the trial). The Fast Track Court in Thalassery had sentenced five of them to death. The District and Sessions Court, Kannur and the Kerala High Court upheld the verdict but the Supreme Court acquitted four while commuting the death sentence on one to life imprisonment.

According to Kamala, Sajeevan had got indications from CPI(M) leaders and his co-accused that the court could give them maximum punishment for the murder. “He told us that they (the Marxist party) had trapped him in the case. He said he would tell the court the whole truth as he was not ready to undergo the punishment for a crime he had not committed,” she said.

“Why would my son kill Jayakrishnan? They were contemporaries and I had treated Jayakrishnan on par with Sajeevan. We were neighbours. I am sure his party was behind his death. They were afraid that he might speak the truth,” she said, adding that the family would petition the Chief Minister and State Home Minister on the matter in the coming days.

“We are still being looked upon as the family of the man who heinously murdered Jayakrishnan Master. We want that branding to end. I believe that my brother was murdered and had not committed suicide. This belief has now been strengthened with the disclosures of TK Rajeesh,” Sajeevan’s sister said.

CPI(M)’s Kannur district secretary P Jayarajan, however, said that the family was had come up with the allegation nine years after Sajeevan’s death because they were now under the influence and protection of the BJP. “But we have no objection to any sort of inquiry into Sajeevan’s death,” he said on Monday.

“Sajeevan became accused in the murder case not because we had provided any list. The list was provided by the BJP. It was the BJP’s advocates and witnesses who had slapped the charge on innocent Sajeevan in the court. What the people believe is that he, being unable to bear the humiliation and mental agony due to this, could have committed suicide,” Jayarajan said.