13 found guilty in Kerala professor’s hand-chopping case

Thiruvananthapuram: The National Investigation Agency court in Kochi on Thursday found guilty 13 of the accused in the cutting off a professor’s right palm allegedly by religious fanatics. Eighteen others were acquitted.

The incident occurred on July 4, 2010, when a gang waylaid professor T.J. Joseph of the Thodupuzha Newman College in Ernakulam district and chopped off his palm, when he was returning home in a car after attending Sunday mass with his family.

The incident happened near Muvattupuzha, not far from the college where Joseph worked as a Malayalam professor. What provoked the assailants was a question that the professor had framed in an internal examination, which the assailants thought had hurt their religious sentiments.

The court upheld the charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act that were slapped on 11 of the accused. The court will announce the quantum of punishment for all on May 5.

Five of the accused in the case, including the main accused, are absconding. The state authorities have taken the help of Interpol, but have not been able to trace them.

Professor Joseph, who has since retired from the college, said he forgave the accused. “In the court of conscience, they have been forgiven”, he said.

Joseph had been dragged out of the car by the assailants, and his palm was chopped off with an axe, even as his aged mother Aleykutty and his sister Mary Stella, a nun, were forced to watch helplessly. The assailants had detonated explosives to keep away bystanders and other people.

Joseph’s right palm was sewn back by doctors at a hospital in Kochi through a surgery that lasted several hours, but the professor then had to teach himself to write and work with his left hand.

Ever since the incident, the professor’s life was drowned in a wave of setbacks, including his dismissal from the college by the management. A mightier tragedy followed when his wife Salome, who had lost all hope that he would be reinstated, committed suicide.

The college authorities belatedly took him back but that was at the fag end of a career.