15 Convicted for Killing Kerala BJP Leader Ranjith Sreenivasan; Death Penalty for All

Kochi: A Kerala court on Tuesday handed down the death sentence to 15 individuals convicted of the brutal murder of Ranjith Sreenivasan, a prominent leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2021. All the convicts were members of the Popular Front of India. The court’s decision comes after their conviction on January 20. The convicted individuals include Naisam, Ajmal, Anoop, Mohammad Aslam, Salam, Saffaruddin, Abdul Kalam, Manshad, Jaseeb Raja, Navas, Sameer, Nazir, Zakir Hussain, Shaji, and Shernas Ashraf. Ranjith Sreenivasan, who was 40 years old at the time, served as the state secretary of the BJP OBC Morcha.

The gruesome murder took place on December 19, 2021, in Vellakinar, Alappuzha town. Shockingly, the victim’s mother, wife, and child were forced to bear witness to the horrifying act. Ranjith Sreenivasan’s killing was seen as a retaliatory act for the murder of SDPI state secretary KS Shan, who was allegedly killed by RSS members the previous day in the same district. During the incident, Ranjith’s mother and sister were also assaulted.

The prosecution revealed that the victim’s body had 56 gashes. The court determined that eight individuals were directly involved in the murder, while four others accompanied the assailants to the scene with weapons, preventing the victim from escaping and allowing others to enter the house after hearing his screams. Sreenivasan’s family expressed hope for the sentencing to reflect the severity of the crime.

The BJP leader‘s murder occurred shortly after the killing of K S Shan, an SDPI leader, on the night of December 18, 2021, as he was returning home in Alappuzha. The tragic events shocked both the local community and the nation as a whole.