The Crime Branch (CB) has arrested BJP leader and councillor V.G. Girikumar for allegedly plotting the firebombing of the ashram of Sandeepananda Giri, a spiritual speaker and staunch Sangh Parivar critic, at the peak of the Sabarimala agitation in 2018.
The CB produced Mr. Girikumar in court on Tuesday and remanded him in judicial custody for 14 days. His arrest prompted BJP workers to march to the Secretariat in protest against the “CPI(M)-sponsored political hit-job” against the party’s PTP Nagar councillor.
BJP district president V.V. Rajesh said the government had wreaked political vendetta against Mr. Girikumar for exposing the CPI(M) ‘s attempt to stage backdoor appointments at the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation. He alleged that the CB had acted as the CPI(M) ‘s catspaw.
During the run-up to the crime, Sandeepananda Giri regularly featured in television talk shows and commentary panels as a high-profile advocate of women’s right to worship at Sabarimala and emerged as a harsh critic of the Sangh Parivar’s opposition to the Supreme Court-sanctioned move.
The crime assumed a political dimension with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan visiting the torched ashram. Soon the CPI(M) blamed the RSS for the attack.
The trial went cold for four years. The probe failed to yield any eyewitness or surveillance camera footage.
The police failed to trace the provenance of the funeral wreath left at the crime scene as a death warning to Sandeepananda Giri. Their “facial composite” of the suspected arsonist found no credible match.
The case took a turn in early 2023 when an informant told the CB that his relative, Prakashan, an RSS sympathiser who later committed suicide, was the arsonist.
The CB worked on the lead and arrested Sabari S. Nair, another RSS activist. Soon, the agency arrested Krishnakumar, a BJP worker, for allegedly supplying the funeral wreath.
An official privy to the investigation claimed that the CB had digital evidence, primarily mobile phone metadata, to show that the accused relentlessly communicated with one another in the days preceding and after the arson attack. Moreover, he said the CB appeared to have mobile phone tower locations proving the presence of the suspected arsonist at the crime scene and the whereabouts of his “partners”.
