Pronouncement of quantum of punishment on January 28

A local court today reserved orders for January 28 for pronouncing the quantum of punishment to the 12 accused, who were found guilty in the sensational T P Chandrasekharan murder case.
Special Judge R Narayana Pisharadi heard both the defence and prosecution and also the pleas of the convicts.
Special Prosecutors C K Sreedharan and P Kumaran Kutty pleaded for maximum punishment to the convicts and for considering it as a 'rarest of rare case'.
"The cold-blooded murder shook everyone's conscience and the accused are a menace to the society," they said.
The murder was a pre-planned dastardly act executed by professional and hardened criminals and the killers and conspirators should be given capital and extreme punishment, they said.

Defence counsel pleaded for lesser punishment.

The court had yesterday acquitted several CPI-M local functionaries of conspiracy charge in the case while finding guilty 12 accused, seven of whom carried out the brutal killing.
The court had acquitted 24 of the 36 accused including P Mohanan, CPI(M) district secretariat member and husband of party MLA K K Lathika.
While the seven who carried out the murder were hired killers, five others found guilty included three local functionaries of the CPI-M.
All the convicts, including the three CPI(M) leaders K C Ramachandran, member of the Kunnummakkara local committee, Manojan, former branch secretary of Kadanganpoyil of the CPI(M) and P K Kunhanandan, member of the Panur area committee of the CPI(M), were present.

The three convicts prayed for lesser punishment.
Kunhanandan prayed that he was a sick person and his wife stayed alone.
Police had made tight security arrangements inside the court as well as outside.
Chandrasekharan, once a CPI (M) functionary from the party bastion of Onchiyam near Vatakara in Kozhikode district, was hacked to death on May 4, 2012.
He left the party a few years ago over differences with the leadership and floated a parallel outfit called Revolutionary Marxist Party. He was 51 at the time of murder and suffered 51 hack injuries on the body.