Two more witnesses in the T.P. Chandrasekharan murder case turned hostile during the trial at the Special Additional District and Sessions Court (Marad cases) here on Thursday.
Special judge R. Narayana Pisharadi, declared C.K. Bindumon of Thalassery and P.M. Raveendra Babu, manager of South Malabar Gramin Bank, who were 24th and 25th prosecution witnesses respectively, hostile under Section 154 (question by party to his own witness) of the Indian Evidence Act.
This was after special prosecutor C.K. Sreedharan requested the court that they be pronounced adverse witnesses as they had denied having given a statement under Section 161 (examination of witnesses by police) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The case related to a gang hacking to death the Revolutionary Marxist Party leader at Onchiyam on May 4, 2012. Till now, four witnesses have turned hostile since the commencement of trial. Bindumon said that he had not employed anyone by the name C.K. Aswanth of Chettiarkandiyil, Naluchira, Pallur at his shop at Thalassery Municipal Complex where stickers and number-plates are made.
He said that the sticker with Arabic words Masha Allah (God willed it) pasted on the front and rear windshield of the Toyota Innova used by the assailants and the fake number-plate on the vehicle had not been made at his shop.
Bindumon said that he had been running the shop at Thalassery for 22 years. None by the name Aswanth had been appointed for designing works, he said.
Bindumon also denied that the police had on June 11, 2012, seized a hard disk of a computer from shop. The hard disk contained the images of the fake number-plate and the sticker. Another prosecution witness, Raveendra Babu told the court that his statements against K.C. Ramachandran, member, Kunnummakkara local committee of the CPI (M) and the eighth accused in the case, had been fabricated by the police.
He said that he did not know whether Ramachandran had called him from a mobile number (9747170471) which had been used for calling the hired gang to kill Chandrasekharan.
