Wednesday, July 27 2005 19:16 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kochi: The Kerala High Court today (July 27, 2005) upheld the death sentence awarded to five CPM (Communist Party of India) activists convicted of the brutal murder of school-teacher and Bharatiya Yuva Morcha office-bearer K T Jayakrishnan inside a Government school at Mokeri in Kannur District in 1999.

Dismissing the appeals of A Pradeepan, B Dinesh Babu, K Surendran, N Shaji, K K Anil Kumar, a Division Bench comprising Justice K Padmanabhan Nair and Justice V Ramkumar confirmed the sentence awarded by the Thalassery Additional Sessions Court to them.

The bench observed that time and venues were calculatedly chosen by the 'blood thirsty' assailants. So they selected the "temple of learning" as the place to execute Jayakrishnan.

They tresspassed into the classroom and inflicted 44 ante mortem injuries on Jayakrishnan in front of the sixth standard students. They did not act like human beings at all, the bench held in its 160-page judgement.

They did not consider the deep mental aberration and trauma the children would have to suffer on seeing such a grotesque and terrible scene, the Judges said.