New Delhi: The Kerala High Court has granted parole to a ‘serial killer’ serving three life sentences to attend his daughter’s wedding next week, observing that conviction does not “reduce a person into a non-human” and basic human rights cannot be “crippled”.
The court granted him 15-day parole Friday after hearing a plea filed by his wife and argued by their lawyer-daughter Keerthi Jayanandan.
The convict in question, 56-year-old K.P. Jayanandan, also known as ‘ripper Jayanandan’, is serving the sentences at the high-security central jail in Viyyur.
“The wedding of a daughter is an auspicious occasion and the presence of the father of the bride at that solemn function is most appropriate, this court is of the view that the petitioner’s husband ought to be given parole for partaking in the wedding of his daughter,” the single-judge bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas said in its order.
The order went further to add that the court “cannot be oblivious to the glorious right to liberty enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution” and that the “liberty of every individual and the right to life guaranteed under the aforesaid constitutional provision has been interpreted to include the right to live with human dignity”.
“Though a convict, the petitioner’s husband also enjoys the facets of right to life and liberty within the limits of law,” read the order.
According to one report, Jayanandan will be allowed to attend his daughter’s wedding ceremony to be held at a temple in Thrissur Wednesday under police surveillance.
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Cases against ‘ripper Jayanandan’
Jayanandan was given the infamous ‘ripper’ tag as he was known to attack his victims with a ripper. He is accused in eight murder cases, a double-homicide, and several robberies.
Most of his victims were elderly people. Investigators also suspected that while robbery was the main motive, Jayanandan also sexually abused some of his victims. According to the police, all murders took place between 2002 and 2008.
Jayanandan was sentenced to death in the double murder of an aged couple in Thrissur in 2014. The Kerala HC, however, commuted it to life sentence without parole in 2016.
In 2021, police said Jayanandan was also behind a 17-year-old double murder case. The twin murders took place on 30 May 2004 near Kochi where a 73-year-old retired officer and her 60-year-old cousin were attacked with a ripper and killed in their home.
Jayanandan has also made several attempts to escape prison in the past and was successful on at least two occasions.
In 2013, he broke out from the high-security Thiruvananthapuram central jail along with his cellmate Ooppa Prakash who was serving time for burglary, after sawing through the prison door with a hacksaw. Prior to that, he had fled Kannur central jail in 2010 but was later nabbed from Udhagamandalam in Tamil Nadu the very next day.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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