In school where Morcha leader was killed, his Marxist killer is PTA head

A local CPI(M) leader, first accused in the case pertaining to the brutal murder of Kerala Yuva Morcha vice-president KT Jayakrishnan on December 1, 1999 in a classroom of the Mokeri East UP School in Panur, Kannur, is currently the president of the Parent-Teacher Association of the same school! Jayakrishnan was a teacher in this school.

Acharuparambath Pradeepan, first accused in the Jayakrishnan murder case whom the Supreme Court had sentenced to life imprisonment, and those close to him say that he became PTA chief due to the insistence of the teachers and parents but allegations have come up that this is part of a strategy adopted by the Marxists in the context of the possibility of re-probe into the killing.

A Marxist killer gang including Pradeepan had hacked and chopped Jayakrishnan on the morning of December 1, 1999 in the classroom in front of his students, all under the age of 11. The gang also left a message on the blackboard in the classroom saying that anyone trying to be a witness in the case would meet with the same fate.

The murder of Jayakrishnan was considered to be one of the most brutal political assassinations in the history of Kerala. Several of the students who had to witness the heinous crime had fell unconscious then and many of them had to undergo counseling for several years to come back to normal life.

Reports on Pradeepan’s continuance as PTA president have come when the Kerala Government is seriously thinking of launching a re-investigation into the murder case on the basis of a deposition by another killer that those arrested in the case except Pradeepan were not members of the killer gang and were made accused as per a list provided by the CPI(M).

Pradeepan, who was then a local committee secretary of the CPI(M) residing near the school, was arrested a month after the murder and six other CPI(M) workers were held two months later. A court in Thalassery had sentenced Pradeepan and four others to death in the case and the High court later upheld the verdict.

However, the Supreme Court had on December 15, 2006 acquitted four of them and commuted Pradeepan’s death sentence to life imprisonment. Pradeepan was released from prison towards the end of the tenure of the former LDF Government despite protests from Sangh Pariwar outfits and Jayakrishnan’s mother PK Kausalya.

CPI(M) leaders in Panur, keenly watching the Government move to launch a fresh probe into the Jayakrishnan murder, are of the opinion that a re-investigation would not have legal validity as the Supreme Court itself had heard the case and passed verdict on it. The State DGP has given a report to the Government that there would be no legal impediments to a fresh probe.

The Government move to order a fresh probe into the Morcha leader’s killing is based on the statement of TK Rajeesh, prime accused in the case of the murder of Marxist rebel TP Chandrasekharan, that those arrested in 2000, except Pradeepan, were not involved in the crime. Rajeesh had told the police that he himself was a member of the gang that killed Jayakrishnan.

Following Rajeesh’s revelation, Jayakrishnan’s mother Kausalya had demanded a re-investigation into the murder of her son, especially in the context of the re-probe ordered by the Government into certain political murders that took place in Idukki district three decades ago following some controversial admissions by senior CPI(M) leader MM Mani.

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