The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Court in Thiruvananthapuram has identified Mohammed Ali, the second accused in the murder of engineering student Shyamal Mandal, as guilty of a misdeed that happened 17 years ago and has bestowed him with a life sentence on April 13, 2022.
CBI Special Judge K. Sanil Kumar marked the verdict guilty on April 12th, 2022 under Sections 364A (kidnapping for ransom), 302 (murder), and 379 (theft) read with Section 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
Shyamal Mandal, a native of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, was a BTech student at the College of Engineering Thiruvananthapuram (CET). He resided in the college hostel and was reported missing on October 13th, 2005. The accused, Mohammed Ali, abducted Shyamal with the help of his friend, Durga Jeg Bahadur of Nepal, after calling him on the phone, pretending to be a friend from Andaman and Nicobar who was visiting Thiruvananthapuram and requesting to meet at East Fort in the city.
Before going to East Ford, Mandal had informed his friend, Digambar, about the meeting. When Shyamal did not return, even after two days, Digambar decided to file a complaint with the Medical College Police under the caption “man missing”.
The investigation began. During those days, the victim’s father, Basudev Mandal, a retired school teacher, used to receive calls from the kidnappers who demanded a ransom of Rs. 20 lakhs for his son’s release. After pretty negotiations, the amount was reduced to Rs. 10 lakhs, which the father deposited in a bank account as per the directions of the accusers.
But, on October 24, 2005, Shyamal Mandal’sdecomposed body was found in a sack abandoned at Vellar, near the NH-66 bypass. The kidnappers killed him by slitting his throat.
The case was initially taken over by the local police but was handed over to the CBI in 2008 after Basudev Mandal approached the Kerala High Court seeking a probe by a superior investigation agency that had the infrastructure to conduct a full, complete, satisfactory, and efficient investigation into the crime.
The investigators captured the accused, Mohammed Ali, by tracing the transactions of the bank account into which the ransom money was deposited. It is stated that Ali planned and executed the murder in order to get money from the victim’s father. He knew that, despite being a school teacher, Mandal was also in the business of money lending.
Durga Bahadur, who was also involved during the planning and execution of the crime along with Ali and is the first accused, remains an absconder to this date.
The special judge has also imposed a penalty of Rs 10 lakh on Mohammed Ali for all the offences committed by him. The convict was sentenced to undergo a rigorous life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5 lakh for the offence of kidnapping for ransom and another life imprisonment and Rs 5 lakh penalty for the offence of murder.
For the offence of theft, the convict was sentenced to undergo a rigorous imprisonment of three years along with a penalty of Rs 10,000. According to the judge’s order, all sentences must be served concurrently. The judge also held that from the penalty amount compounded, Rs 4 lakh each be given to the parents of Shyamal
