Four years ago, on February 22, 2018, a 30-year-old tribal man from Kerala's Attappadi was lynched by a mob for stealing rice from a grocery shop. Photographs of the incident, which soon began to circulate on social media, showed a frail young man (the deceased A Madhu), his shirt torn and hands tied up using a lungi. Another person is seen talking to Madhu as they stand beside a rock, while a third man smiles at the camera, unperturbed, as he clicks a selfie. In a video, a group of men can be seen hounding Madhu and questioning him. One of them pulls out provisions from a bag, accusing him of stealing the items.
These photographs and video were taken just minutes before the mob brutally attacked Madhu, and later handed him over to the police. It was as he was being taken to the hospital in a police jeep that Madhu collapsed and died. Forensic experts who conducted the postmortem had said that Madhu had died due to severe internal injuries. Apart from the injuries on his body and back of the head, his ribs, too, were broken in the brutal assault. All things considered, if one was to assume that Madhu would have at least found justice in court due to the availability of ample evidence, they cannot be faulted. Unfortunately, however, they would be wrong. With the consequent withdrawals of two special public prosecutors and witnesses turning hostile, a just end to the ordeal still remains a faraway dream for Madhu’s family.
Speaking to TNM, Madhu’s mother Malli and sister Sarasu expressed extreme displeasure with how the case was being dragged on in court. A special investigation team had filed a 3,000-page charge sheet in May 2018, naming 16 persons as accused and charging them with murder and offences under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. But even before the trial began, special public prosecutor P Gopinath withdrew from the case citing personal reasons two years ago. V T Reghunath was appointed the next public prosecutor, but he too sought relief from appearing in the case citing ill health. Finally, Rajendran, a senior advocate at the Kerala High Court, was appointed in the case on February 16. Eventually, after the trial started at the Mannarkad Munsiff Magistrate court in April, two witnesses also turned hostile. Madhu’s family say they have strong reason to believe that the accused have the support of political parties, the inordinate delays and roadblocks in the trial being testament to this allegation.
“Initially, the special public prosecutor (Rajendran) was very cooperative with us. But when the trial began, we observed that the defence lawyers were influencing him while raising some questions. I even heard some defence lawyers saying that they would win if the case was proceeding in this manner. This was when some doubts took root in our minds, and we approached the HC asking to stay the trial,” Sarasu tells TNM. “When two witnesses turned hostile during the trial and we saw that our lawyer was not questioning them enough, we felt like we were the accused here. We felt like we failed,” she adds.
Eventually, Malli had approached the HC seeking a directive to change the public prosecutor, referring to the witnesses turning hostile and alleging that the accused may go scot-free if he remained on the case. Malli tells TNM that the case was going in the right direction when the trial began, but the attitude of their lawyer began to change afterwards, which was why they had to seek such a change. Sarasu also alleges conspiracy in Madhu’s murder.
Malli says she does not go to the Mukkali town anymore. She means the town where Madhu was hounded and attacked until the police picked him up. “I can’t be at the place where it happened,” she says. The family has suffered a lot of ostracism ever since the incident, both Malli and Sarasu say. “Even some people who offered us help in the beginning don’t talk to us anymore,” Malli adds.
“Rumours were spread that we got crores of rupees. So people stopped offering us any kind of help. Many of them, including the witnesses, are even scared to travel in the same vehicle with us,” Sarasu says. She recalls how a few people trespassed into their house a while ago. They suspect the accused in Madhu’s lynching were the culprits in this regard as well. “One day, two people wearing masks came to our house carrying sticks. I immediately ran and hid behind our house. But they were nowhere to be seen after that. My mother also saw two people that day. It won’t surprise us if we are also assaulted someday,” she says.
Malli says she has no clue why the case is not moving properly at the court or why two witnesses turned hostile. But regardless, she will continue her fight, she asserts. “My fight is not just for me. It is for many others as well. Nobody else should have to go through such a plight,” she says.
Watch TNM interview with Madhu's mother Malli