After 11 documents pertaining to the murder of Students Federation of India (SFI) leader Abhimanyu M went missing from the Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court, the prosecution has submitted the certified copies of all the missing documents.
The Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court, while hearing the Abhimanyu murder case on Thursday, March 18, observed there was nothing new in documents going missing from courts. According to reports, the eleven crucial documents such as a 5,000-page chargesheet, post-mortem certificate, wound certificate, and statements of the accused and witnesses went missing in January 2019.
That these documents had gone missing became public knowledge only when the Principal Sessions Court on Wednesday, March 6, asked advocates to raise objections before March 17. The Kerala High Court asked the prosecution to submit the documents on March 7.
On December 1, 2023, sessions court judge Honey Varghese reported the issue of missing documents to the Kerala High Court and the court ordered a “reconstruction”. During the hearing on Thursday, the defence objected to the reconstruction of the documents. The court assured that they could cross-verify the documents and adjourned the case to March 25.
Abhimanyu, a native of Idukki’s Vattavada, was a second-year degree student of Maharajas College in Ernakulam district. On July 2, 2018, he was stabbed to death allegedly by activists of Campus Front of India. An argument between the two groups over sticking posters on the campus allegedly triggered the clash.