15 PFI workers sentenced to death for Ranjith Sreenivasan's murder

Ranjith Sreenivasan, BJP OBC Morcha state secretary, was brutally attacked and allegedly killed in his home, in front of his family

The Alappuzha court in Kerala on Tuesday handed over a death sentence to all the 15 Popular Front of India (PFI) workers who were convicted of murdering Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ranjith Sreenivasan.

Mavelikkara Additional District Judge V G Sreedevi pronounced the sentence.

The prosecution had sought the maximum sentence for the convicts, stating that they were a "trained killer squad" and that the cruel and diabolical manner in which the victim was killed in front of his mother, infant, and wife brought it within the ambit of the "rarest of the rarest" of crimes.

Ranjith Sreenivasan murder case

Ranjith Sreenivasan, the BJP OBC Morcha state secretary, was brutally attacked and allegedly killed in his home in front of his family by activists affiliated with PFI and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) on December 19, 2021.

The court on January 20 had found that out of the 15 people accused in the case, one to eight were directly involved in the case.

It also found four people (accused number nine to 12) guilty of murder because they, along with those directly involved in the crime, came to the spot armed with deadly weapons. Their objective was to prevent Sreenivasan from escaping and stop anyone entering the house after hearing his screams.

The court had accepted the prosecution's argument that they were also liable for the common offence of murder under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object).

The court also convicted for murder three others (accused number 13 to 15) who had hatched the conspiracy to kill the BJP leader.