The Mavelikara Additional District Sessions Court-I will pronounce quantum of punishment for 15 convicts in the murder case of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ranjith Sreenivas on January 30.
On Thursday, Judge Sreedevi V.G. heard directly from the convicts regarding the sentencing and recorded their statements.
Last week, the court found all 15 accused, belonging to the now proscribed Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political arm Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), in the case guilty of the crime.
The case
The prosecution case was that Ranjith, who was the State secretary of the BJP’s OBC Morcha and a lawyer, was hacked to death most brutally by the accused at his house at Vellakinar in Alappuzha municipality on the morning of December 19, 2021.
While the prosecution demanded maximum sentences for the convicts during arguments on the quantum of punishment, the defence side argued that the case would not fall under the rarest of rare category warranting capital punishment.
