Kerala professor’s hand-chopping case: NIA court convicts six more PFI cadres

Ernakulam (Kerala) [India], July 12 : A National Investigation Agency (NIA) special trial court here in Kerala convicted six more accused persons on Wednesday in the 2010 case of attempted murder of a professor by chopping off his hand.

The quantum of punishment will be pronounced by the court on Thursday, said the NIA.

The six Popular Front of India (PFI) cadres have been convicted under Indian Penal Code, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Explosive Substances Act. They have been found guilty of promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and carrying out terrorist acts. These six accused have been identified as Sajil, Nasar, Najeeb, Noushad, PP Moideen Kunhu and Ayoob.

"One PFI cadre, Savad, who was part of the barbaric attack is still absconding and the trial against him is pending and a hunt is on for him," the anti-terror agency said.

As per the NIA, all the accused in the case are cadres of the banned PFI, and they had conspired to kill Professor TJ Joseph by chopping off his right palm over his alleged derogatory remarks about Prophet Mohammed in a Question Paper prepared for the Malayalam examination for B.Com students in Newman College, Thodupuzha, Idukki district, Kerala.

“The accused had carried out the barbaric daylight attack on the professor in the presence of his family members on July 4, 2010,” said the NIA, adding that the accused had attacked the professor while the family was returning from church after the Sunday morning mass.

As per the NIA, the assailants had also hurled a bomb to terrorise the public and escape from the scene.

Kerala Police had, on January 10 in 2011, filed a chargesheet against 27 accused persons. Subsequently, the NIA took over the case and, following extensive raids, arrested and chargesheeted another 20 accused.

In April 2015, the NIA Special Court had convicted 13 accused persons.

The NIA has been tightening the noose around the PFI across India and has so far filed a total of seven cases and arrested 138 office bearers and cadres of the banned outfit following 346 raids spanning over several states. A total of 332 bank accounts have been frozen and 27 properties of the PFI have been attached in these cases.

NIA investigations in these cases had revealed that PFI had conspired to overthrow the democratically elected government in India and establish Islamic State by 2047. It was engaged in carrying out communally divisive crimes and incidents of terror, targeting members of other communities, in pursuance of this goal, as per the investigations.

PFI maintains a set of trained cadres, constituting service teams and Hit Teams, to recce, identify and eliminate leaders and members of various other communities.

During investigation in Kerala, the NIA said, it found that the outfit also maintained a set of cadres called ‘Reporters’, whose primary task was to conduct recce and collect maximum details on select individuals belonging to various other communities, for eventual elimination of the targets.

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