By Matters India Reporter
Kochi, July 12, 2022: A court of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on July 12 pronounced 6 of the 11 accused guilty, 13 years after they chopped of the hand of T J Joseph, a college professor in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
The court in Kochi, Kerala’s commercial capital, found Popular Front of India (PFI) members Sajil, Nasar, Najeeb, Noushad, Moydeenkunju, and Ayoob guilty of the charges. It acquitted five other accused of the crime.
The quantum of punishment will be delivered at 3 pm July 13.
The court stated that the terrorism charges and the conspiracy against the accused have been proved beyond doubt.
Responding to the verdict, Joseph said the law had caught up with the accused. However, he does not believe he got justice in the case. “The people who are the accused came under the influence of religious bigots. I believe the real culprits behind this conspiracy and terror are still at large,” he lamented.
He also expressed unhappiness over the Kerala Police’s inability to trace the prime accused Savad who has been absconding for the past 13 years. “A change must undergo in archaic rules that are still followed by fundamentalists. Only then can justice be delivered,” Joseph asserted.
Meanwhile, TK Rajmohan, a former NIA official said he was happy over the verdict. “This is a lesson for all those youngsters who get misdirected by religious fundamentalists. I was part of the team which first visited the professor after he fell victim to the terror.” Justice will only be completed the day Savad gets arrested, the official said.
Joseph’s hand was cut off in July 2010 by the members of the PFI, now a banned organization. He was accused of insulting Islam in an exam paper.
Joseph, who was then 52, taught Malayalam language in Newman College in Thodupuzha, 60 km east of Kochi. He was driving home with mother and sister after Sunday Mass at his home parish in Muvattupuzha, 20 km northwest of Thodupuzha.
A minvan blocked his and six men in it dragged him on the road before hacking away at his legs and hands.
The palm of his severed left hand was flung aside. The right arm hang from his body
Neighbours drove Joseph to hospital with his severed hand. Six doctors took 16 hours and used 16 bottles of blood to operate on him and stitch back the severed hand and repair his wrist and arm.
Thirteen men were convicted in connection with the attack, 10 of them jailed for eight years. Federal investigators appealed against what they said was lenient punishment for the convicted – the plea is still pending in the courts.
Barely a month after Joseph returned from the hospital in August 2010, his college fired him.
He underwent a series of operations in 2010 and 2011 to fix his injured leg, forearm and fingers.
In November 2013 a court dismissed the charge of blasphemy and said the controversy was created by “some Muslims who had misunderstood” the question.
Meanwhile, Joseph’s wife Salomi slid into depression and took her life in 2014.
Joseph wrote 700-page memoirs – “A Thousand Cuts,” which was released in 2022 to critical acclaim. He has also published a “slimmer, mostly satirical” sequel.