Kerala: Attappadi Madhu lynching case verdict on March 30

Palakkad: The verdict in the sensational Madhu lynching case in 2018 will be pronounced on March 30 by a special court in Manarkkad, Kerala, for trying offences under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The hearing of the case began on April 28, 2022, and was completed on March 10, 2023. 

In the case, there were 122 witnesses for the prosecution. During the trial, 103 witnesses were heard, and 24 of them were deemed hostile. Another 24 were later removed without being heard. During the course of the trial, several witnesses turned hostile. There were also instances of defection which continued despite the appointment of Rajesh M Menon as Special Prosecutor replacing Adv C Rajendran, a situation where the prosecution cannot see or speak to witnesses.

With the implementation of the Witness Protection Act, the prosecution was able to prevent defection to some extent. 

Both the accused and the witnesses, who are out on bail, are natives of the same place. The majority of the witnesses are reliant on the accused. The defection was made easier by the trial's delayed commencement. The witness protection law was put into place for this reason. The accused and the witnesses were being monitored by the police. The accused's phone calls and financial transactions were investigated by the police. It was discovered that the accused had called the witnesses both directly and indirectly. The major intermediary is Anchan, an Anawai native. As it was discovered that defection was being organised, the bail for the 12 accused was revoked.

The 30-year-old tribal youth was brutally lynched on February 22, 2018, in Palakkad district’s Attappadi, for stealing rice from a grocery shop. A special investigation team filed a 3,000-page charge sheet in May 2018, named 16 persons as accused, and charged them with murder and offences under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

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