Thiruvananthapuram: A Kerala court on Friday, January 10, found eight BJP-RSS workers guilty in a case of beating and stabbing to death a CPI(M) activist Sreekumar near Trivandrum’s Alamcode in May 2013.

Thiruvananthapuram Additional District and Sessions Judge IV Aaj Sudarsan found Shambhu Kumar alias Shambhu, Sreejith alias Unni, Harikumar, Chandramohan alias Ambili and Santhosh alias Chandu, guilty of the offence of murder under the IPC.

The court found three others, Abhishek alias Anni Santhosh, Prashanth alias Pazhinji Prashanth and Sajeev guilty of being part of the criminal conspiracy to commit the offence of murder, special public prosecutor (SPP) A A Hakkim said.

It will pronounce their sentences on January 15, the SPP said.

According to the prosecution, the reason behind the killing of the victim Sreekumar alias Ashokan was a financial dispute between his friend Aad Binu and one of the accused, Shambhu.

Sreekumar had intervened in the financial row and caused injuries to Shambhu, the SPP said.

Subsequently, the eight accused hatched a plan to retaliate and beat up and stabbed to death the victim near Alamcode on May 5, 2013, the prosecutor said.

The SPP also said that eight other accused in the case who were charged with destruction of evidence and helping the attackers to abscond were acquitted due to lack of evidence against them.

The prosecution examined 45 witnesses and placed 110 documents before the court in support of its contentions, the SPP said.