Kerala MLA to file petition in HC against remission of 3 convicted CPI(M) workers

Thiruvananthapuram: K. K. Rema, a first-time legislator, announced on Saturday that she would file a petition with the High Court in response to reports that three CPI(M) workers who are currently serving double death sentences for the 2012 murder of her husband T. P. Chandrasekaran are among the inmates eligible for remission.

The three inmates found guilty in the T.P. murder case are among the 59 inmates that the Kannur Jail Superintendent forwarded to the Kannur Police Commissioner.

The three convicts are T. K. Rejeesh, Mohammed Shafi and Annan Sreejith.

This letter got leaked to the media on Saturday after which Rema said that she would move the court.

"In February, the Kerala High Court made it very clear that the convicts in jail in the case are not eligible for any remission before 20 years. This move is being done at the instance of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan also holds the Home portfolio). We will take it up politically and legally, besides meeting the State Governor who has to give the final sanction," said Rema.

Former Home Minister and Congress legislator Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan who dealt with the TP case in 2012 said that what has come out is a grave issue.

"How an IPS officer, who knows what the case was, can suggest the names of those three convicts," asked Radhakrishnan.

However, CPI(M) senior leader Anil Kumar said a jail superintendent, who prepared the list of prisoners who are eligible to get a remission, might not know the order from the High Court regarding the case.

"Also this is just a list and this list goes through vetting at other places also, and then only the final remission list gets cleared," said Anil Kumar.

Chandrasekheran, 51, who launched the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP), was hacked to death on May 4, 2012, when he was returning home on his motorcycle in his hometown near Kozhikode.

In the case, a court sentenced 11 people to life imprisonment, of which three were middle-level CPI-M leaders.

Chandrasekaran was a hugely popular CPI(M) leader in Kozhikode district but left the party in 2008 and formed his outfit - RMP.

In the 2021 Assembly polls, Rema, with the support of the Congress-led UDF won a stellar victory from the Vadakara Assembly constituency, despite the CPI(M) trying their best to keep her at bay.

With inputs from IANS