A man who hacked to death the 8-year old boy of his neighbour in 2015, was sentenced to life imprisonment by Kasargode Additional Session Court 1 on Monday.
Judge Sasikumar PS also slapped a fine of Rs 50,000 on the convict Vijayakumar (37). If the convict doesn’t pay the penalty, he would have to serve the imprisonment for an additional three years.
The deceased was Mohammed Fahad, a class 3 student of Government Higher Secondary School at Kalliot near Periya in the district.
The Crime
The crime happened on July 9, 2015 at around 8.45 am, when the boy was hacked with a machete. Fahad was on his way to school, along with his sister Shahala and friend Abdul Anas. Vijayakumar suddenly sprang before them when they reached Chandamullu and hacked Fahad on his neck. There were six deep injuries on the boy’s back and he died on the spot.
Fahad is the son of Abbas and Ayisha and Vijayakumar is the family’s neighbour.
Fahad was born with club foot and was also a victim of pesticide endosulfan’s aerial spraying.
Vijayakumar was a coconut plucker and he committed the crime ‘to punish the boy’s father’.
Though Vijayakumar is said to be an RSS worker and it was initially reported that the crime was prompted out of communal an political enmity, the prosecution cited the convict’s vengeance towards the boy’s father as the reason for the crime. Fahad's father Abbas told media that he was not happy with the verdict and would appeal against the quantum of punishment.
According to Public Prosecutor P Raghavan, Fahad was attacked from behind. Though the prosecution sought capital punishment for the convict, the court didn’t see it as a ‘rarest of the rare’ case. The court sentenced the convict to life term under section 302 of the IPC and one month simple imprisonment for wrongful restraint under section 341 of the IPC. The then Circle Inspector U Preman had investigated the case.
The prosecution produced 20 witnesses, 25 documents and 11 pieces of evidence before the court.