CBI Special Court Judge S. Vijayakumar on Wednesday convicted V. V. Hamsa, the first accused in a case relating to the murder of Chekannur P. K. Mohammed Abdul Hassan Moulavi, a Malappuram-based Islamic scholar.
According to the CBI, he was abducted on July 29, 1993 from his home at Edapal and killed. The court will pronounce the sentence to be awarded to the accused on Thursday.
The court acquitted all the other eight accused in the case as offence against them had not been proved. The court found that the first accused had committed offences punishable under sections 302 (murder), 120 B (Conspiracy) read 364 (abduction), and 201 (destruction of evidence) of Indian Penal Code.
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Hamsa was remanded to the Ernakulam sub- jail after delivering the verdict.
The Moulavi was found missing since he left his home along with some unidentified persons in July 29, 1993.The CBI took over the investigation on a directive from the High Court in 1996.
The court while convicting Hamsa said that all the proved facts and broad circumstances of the case were “conducive with the theory of murder of Chekannur”.The court pointed out that after killing Moulavi, the dead body was disposed off in some mysterious manner so as never to be recovered. It was established that Hamsa along with the un-identified co-abductor had entered into a criminal conspiracy for the murder of Moulavi.
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The court noted that “as part of the conspiracy, the first accused and his companion tactfully abducted Moulavi so that he may be murdered. They then moved him to some secret place with the help of conspirators, murdered him and disposed of his body secretly and mysteriously”.
The court observed that “in the present day world of personal grudge, religious rivalries and physical violence, criminals seek to achieve a stage of being wiser than our criminal law. That cannot be allowed at any rate in a developed criminal legal system as ours'.
The first accused, who along with another person had been proved to have abducted Chekannur. It cannot be believed for a moment that he had let Moulavi free. It was evident that
the abduction in itself was the result of a conspiracy of some fundamentalist individuals among the Muslims who could not tolerate the so called progressive philosophies of Chekannur. They wanted to put an end to this philosopher rather than debating his philosophy, the court observed.
Eom.
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