Kasaragod court acquits three RSS workers in infamous Riyas Maulavi murder

KASARAGOD: Kasaragod District Principal Sessions Court on Saturday acquitted three RSS workers in the murder of Mohammad Riyas Maulavi, a teacher in the Pazhaya Churi Madrasa in Kasaragod.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers Ajeesh, Nitin Kumar and Akhilesh were freed by the court after seven years of impasse in the case. The action committee felt dejected with the verdict and they called for officials to bring out the conspiracy in the case. The committee have not yet decided on whether to appeal the verdict.

Right after hearing the verdict, Riyas Maulavi’s wife Saidha broke down into tears while his relatives too found it difficult to contain the grief. Riyas Maulavi was hacked to death inside Churi Madrasa in the early hours of March 20, 2017. Subsequently, RSS workers including Ajeesh, Nitin Kumar and Akhilesh were arrested by the Special Investigation Team.

The chargesheet in the case was filed within 90 days, thus making the accused not to avail the benefits of bail. Since 2017, all three accused were in jail with no leniency of bail. 97 witnesses were examined from the prosecution side.

Apart from the main witnesses’, representatives of BSNL, Airtel and Idea companies and Dr. Srinivasan, the former Crime Branch SP who supervised the investigation of the case; PK Sudhakaran, the current investigating officer, DySP Kasaragod; Police surgeon Dr. Gopalakrishnan of Pariyaram Medical College, who conducted the postmortem, were examined by the prosecution.

The defence section also produced one witness in the case. The respondent examined the office secretary of the nearby temple. Special Prosecutor Adv. Ashoka, Adv. Shaijit, Adv. Haroon appeared for the prosecution.

Advocate Sunil Kumar, a criminal lawyer from Thalassery Bar, appeared for the defendants.