'Rarest Of The Rarest': Kerala Court Pronounces Death Sentences For 15 Men Linked To PFI In BJP Leader Ranjith Sreenivasan's Murder Case

On Tuesday (30 January), a Kerala court ordered death sentences to all 15 persons associated with the banned Islamist organisation Popular Front of India (PFI) for involvement in the murder of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) OBC wing leader Ranjith Sreenivasan, according to a report from NDTV.

Mavelikkara Additional District Judge V G Sreedevi pronounced the sentence.

The prosecution had demanded the maximum sentence for the convicts, arguing that they were a "trained killer squad" and the cruel and sinister manner in which the victim was killed in front of his mother, infant, and wife brings it within the ambit of the "rarest of the rarest" of crimes.

On 19 December 2021, at approximately 6:30 am, Ranjith Sreenivasan, the 44-year-old state secretary of the BJP OBC Morcha, was brutally murdered in Alappuzha town.

The assailants, numbering around 12 armed men, forcibly entered his residence and ruthlessly hacked him to death in the presence of his wife, mother, and younger daughter.