Three more prosecution witnesses turned hostile during the trial of the T.P. Chandrasekharan murder case at the Special Additional District and Sessions Court (Marad cases) here on Wednesday.
With this, the number of witnesses turning hostile reached 26. Special judge R. Narayana Pisharadi, declared them hostile under Section 154 (question by party to his own witness) of the Indian Evidence Act.
The case related to a gang allegedly hired by the Communist Party of India- (Marxist) hacking to death the Revolutionary Marxist Party leader at Onchiyam on May 4, 2012.
The witnesses who turned hostile were M. Velayudhan Nambiar, an ex-serviceman from Chambadu, Kannur; Prakashan Niranjanayil, Chokli; and Mathews Mukkil of Chokli.
All of them retracted the statements they had previously given to the police.
Velayudhan Nambiar had signed a mahassar report prepared by the police pertaining to the recovery of the base sheet of the Masha Allah (God willed it) sticker found pasted in the Toyota Innova MUV used by the assailants.
The sheet had been deserted by the accused on a road near his daughter’s residence at Panthackal.
But on Wednesday he told the court that he had seen a man accompanied by the police team at that time as part of investigation. But he could not identify him.
In his deposition, Prakashan said that he did not know a neighbour named Aswanth, who was an employee with a computer centre at Thalassery.
As per the chargesheet , Aswanth, 19th accused, had made the fake number plate for the Innova car. He had given a statement to the investigators that he was in his home at Pallur when the police reached there to gather evidence.
Prakashan, however, admitted in court that he had signed the mahassar report paper without any content in it. His signature was taken at a paint shop in Chokli.
Mathews Mukkil, told the court that Shobi, the driver of the Tata Sumo car, in which the second accused Kirmani Manoj, fourth accused T K Rajeesh and sixth accused Shijith aka Annan, had travelled after the murder of Chandrasekharan is a relative of his.
But he told the court that he did not know Shobi was a driver. He retracted his statement that Shobi had shown to police the place where the car had been parked. It was at the residence of Leela, his neighbour.
Mathews said that the police had threatened to arraign him as an accused in the case if refused to sign the papers. This happened at the Vadakara police station after hearing that Shobi was arrested by the police, he said .
