ALAPPUZHA: The district sessions court on Friday awarded life sentence to all the seven accused in the Aju murder case. Judge R. Sudhkaran had found them guilty under section 302 of IPC on Wednesday. The accused are Shiji Joseph, 44, Joseph Antony, 26, Vijesh, 28, Nishad , 29 , Simon V. Jack, 30, Thomas Kutty, 34, and Sinu Varghese, 25. Aju, son of Sivanandan, Vydehi house, Kalath, was killed on the night of November 16, 2008.
He was an AIYF activist and assistant manager with a private bank. The murder took place on the premises of Sree Rama temple, Thoppuveli. According to the prosecution, he was killed as per the direction of the first accused Shiji Joseph. His employees (the accused second to seven) attacked Aju and his friend Abhilash as Abhilash had refused to give the house construction contract to Shiji.
