On Tuesday 4th of march 2023, the Mannarkkad Special Court for Scheduled Caste Scheduled
Tribe convicted 14 people out of 16 people in Madhu murder case.
Maraikkar, Husain, Shamsudeen, Abubacker, Siddique, Radhakrishnan, Ubaid, Najeeb,
Jaijumon, Satheesh, Hareesh Muneer Sajeev, and Biju are the names of the accused in the Madhu
murder case. The remaining two accused named Aneesh and Abdul Kareem, have been exonerated by the
court. Amongst both of these men Aneesh was charged with taking pictures of Madhu and
posting them on social media and Abdul kareem was charged for calling Madhu a thief, in an
effort to humiliate him. According to the special court, the 14 accused people were found guilty under IPC 304(2) – punishment for Culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The quantum of punishment will be announced on Wednesday. Madhu a mentally unstable tribal man from Chindakki hamlet in Attappady, Palakkad, was murder on 22nd of February 2018 after being tied and brutally thrashed by the mob who accused him of steeling rice from a grocery shop. Later he was given to the police, while he was
travelling to the hospital, Madhu passed away. His post-mortem reports stated that he had several
injuries and numerous wounds on his body as well as his head, Madhu was also reported to have
suffered broken ribs and internal bleeding. Couple of days after the incident a 3000 page charge sheet was filed by a special investigation team (SIT), it named all 16 of the accused and charged them for the felony committed by them for the offences stated under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
In May 2018 the high court granted bail to all the accused under several conditions.
The trial proceedings finally started at Mannarkkad court on 28th April 2022. However, on
20thaugust 2022, due to the prosecution’s argument that under the accused’s influence, several
witnesses had turned hostile during the course of trial, the bail granted to 12 of the 16 accused
had to be revoked by the special court. There were 127 witnesses for the prosecution in all, it was
noted. 24 of the 100 witnesses whose testimony was heard during the trial were deemed hostile.
Another 24 were removed and without being heard. Whereas, two people died. the cancellation
of bail was challenged in the High Court but the order of the Special Court was upheld.
On September 23, 2022, the High Court dismissed one of the accused’s anticipatory bail request
because he had threatened the victim’s mother, in order to stop her from proceeding with the
trial. An FIR had been registered against him, The registered FIR alleged that the accused
invaded the house of victim’s mother, Malli and threatened to murder her for proceeding with the
trial relating to her son Madhu’s death.
The accused who were found guilty by the Special Court were accused of committing offenses
punishable under Sections 143, 147, 148, 323, 324, 326, 294(b), 342, 352, 364, 367, 368, and
302 r/w 149 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 3(1) (d), (r) (s) and 3(2) (v) of the
Scheduled Caste and SC/ST(PoA) Act.
The mother of the victim, Malli, stated that the verdict is not satisfactory and she is not pleased
with the judgement, especially with two accused being acquittal and neither of the 16 people
getting convicted for murder. She told the reporter that she is going to appeal against the verdict.
by-NAME: PRANJAL JHA COLLEGE: AMITY LAW SCHOOL, NOIDA SEMESTER: 2nd
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