CBI to re-investigate murder of Yuva Morcha leader

The Congress-led UDF government in Kerala has asked the CBI to re-investigate the murder of BJP youth wing leader and teacher K T Jayakrishnan in front of his students inside a classroom in a primary school in Kannur district 13 years back by CPI(M) activists.
According to official sources, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy last evening made a formal request to CBI to take up the politically-sensitive case, in which real culprits were alleged to have escaped punishment due to manipulations by their political bosses.
The case, however, took a sensational turn about an year back when a CPI(M) activist confessed to the police, while being grilled in a different case, that the real culprits in the Jayakarishnan murder case had been shielded by the party.

Based on this revelation, the government decided to refer the case to Crime Branch wing of the state police but later opted for a CBI inquiry in view of political ramifications of the case.
An activist of Yuva Morcha from politically-volatile Panur near Thalassery, Jayanakrishnan was hacked to death on December 1, 1999, by a group of CPI(M) workers inside a class room with the students looking at the shocking event.
After the police investigation, seven CPI(M) workers were made accused in the case. Five of them were awarded death sentence by a sessions court while one of them committed suicide during trial stage and two others acquitted.

The appeal court, however, reduced the punishment to life imprisonment and, later, the Supreme Court acquitted all but one of the accused in the case.

The case had a sensational revival an year ago when a CPI(M) worker, arrested in connection with the murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party leader T P Chandrasekharan, told police that the real culprits did not figure as accused in the Jayakrishnan murder case.
He claimed that the list of accused was then prepared on the basis of the names given by local party leaders, who wanted to shield those who actually committed the murder.
Since then, Jayakrishnan's mother and the state unit of BJP have been demanding a CBI probe into the case to unearth the conspiracy behind the murder and bring the real culprits to justice.