TP Chandrasekaran murder case; what the high court verdict is reminding society

The judgment passed by the High Court in the TP Chandrasekaran murder case once again brings back the shocking memories of that brutal incident. The High Court has increased the life sentence awarded to the six accused by the trial court to double life imprisonment. Another feature worth mentioning is that the two accused who were acquitted by the Sessions Court were newly sentenced to life imprisonment. Thirteen defendants in the case were ordered to pay a fine of two lakh rupees each. The wife of the deceased CPM leader Kunjananthan who was an accused is responsible for paying the fine on his behalf.

TP Chandrasekharan, who was a local CPM worker, left the party due to differences with the leadership and formed a new organization called RMP to strengthen its activities, resulting in his murder. On the night of May 4, 2012, as he was riding home on his bike, the assassins who were waiting bombed Chandrasekhar and left his body extremely demonized. In the postmortem later, the lifeless body was found to have 51 hack wounds. The case was that the CPM leaders hired assassins to kill TP Chandrasekaran.

Even though the position of the CPM leadership then and now is that they had no role in the TP murder, it is an undeniable fact that party workers are among the accused involved in the incident. Killing opponents in the name of politics is not acceptable to society in any way. The same was pointed out by the Division Bench of the High Court in its judgment increasing the punishment of the accused. The community also agree with the court's observation that the killing of TP Chandrasekaran was brutal, barbaric and a challenge to society. The prosecution had argued that a death penalty should be given to the main accused, but the court took the view that this would not come within the ambit of the rarest of the rare cases. Therefore, the court tried to give a strong warning to such criminals by doubling the sentence awarded by the trial court to the accused.

It is specially reminded that the nine defendants are not allowed to go out on parole even once during the first twenty years of their sentence. This toughening of the punishment will teach a big lesson to the criminals who think that even a life sentence is no big deal. The known term of imprisonment in the country makes prison life more enjoyable if the accused has political support.

The accused were given an opportunity to explain if there was any reason not to increase the sentence awarded by the Sessions Court. Most of the accused had requested that the punishment be reduced since they had to take care of their families. However, they might have forgotten the fact that they ruthlessly cut down a man who also had a mother, wife and child. Political leaders should be able to save the state from the clutches of criminal gangs who commit murders on quotations. Dissenters should not be eliminated but protected. Such a political culture needs to grow. The Division Bench's observation that political killings should not be trivialized or normalized should be taken into consideration by political leaders.