The post-mortem examination of Ram Narayan, a Dalit migrant worker from Chhattisgarh who was lynched by a mob at Walayar in Kerala's Palakkad district, has revealed the extreme brutality of the attack, with the doctor stating that there was not a single part of the body without injury.
Thrissur Government Medical College Hospital doctor Hithesh Shankar, who conducted the autopsy, said Ram Narayan's body bore injuries from head to toe. His ribs were shattered, his spine was broken, and most of the wounds were inflicted using sticks. The doctor said the assault continued even after death.
"I have conducted more than 10,000 post-mortem examinations, but I have never seen a body subjected to such severe violence," he said.
According to the post-mortem report, the cause of death was severe head injury.
Ram Narayan is survived by his wife, two young children, and his mother. He had arrived in Walayar about a week earlier in search of work and to meet his cousin Sasikanth, a mason working in the area. Sasikanth said Ram Narayan was planning to return home as he was struggling to stay away from his family. "He left for the railway station on December 17. We came to know about his death only on December 18, when the Walayar police called me," he told reporters, adding that the deceased had his name and address with him.
Ram Narayan's wife, mother, and children have since travelled from Chhattisgarh to Kerala.
Human rights activists in Kerala have alleged that there is a deliberate attempt to trivialise the killing and demanded that the crime be officially registered as mob lynching. Addressing a protest meeting in Thrissur on Saturday, activists said Kerala's collective conscience had been deeply scarred by the spread of hatred.
Activists and family members have made it clear that they will not allow the body to be taken home unless the case is formally recorded as mob lynching and adequate compensation is announced. They said the State must take responsibility for ensuring justice and dignity in death.
The activists pointed out that the victim was a Dalit youth who had come to Kerala in search of work from Chhattisgarh, where marginalised communities, including Adivasis, are often targeted.
"The virus of communalism has entered Kerala's public mind. This is a frightening reality," they said.
Referring to a video that showed the mob assaulting Ram Narayan and asking if he was from Bangladesh, writer and Gandhian thinker K. Aravindakshan said: "This is a clear case of Islamophobia spreading rapidly in Kerala and of religious intolerance propagated by the Sangh Parivar."
"That such a brutal killing could happen here, and that only a handful have spoken out against it, is deeply disturbing. Kerala today seems to be a place where dialogue itself has become impossible," he added.
Human rights activist I. Gopinath described the killing as "a Sangh Parivar-led act of mob violence that reflects the growing Islamophobia in Kerala." He said, "When a man who does not even know the language is beaten to death, the most painful truth is that he may not have even understood why he was being killed. This shows how the politics of hatred operates."
Activists alleged that authorities were attempting to portray the Walayar incident as an ordinary crime. "This is unquestionably a mob lynching, and it must be recorded as such. Only then will Ram Narayan get justice," they said, demanding the formation of a special investigation team.
They also condemned the police for allegedly collecting ambulance charges from the victim's relatives when the body was brought from Walayar to Thrissur for the post-mortem and for asking the family to bear the cost of transporting the body home. The activists demanded ₹25 lakh as compensation and that the government cover the expenses of taking the body to Chhattisgarh.
On Thursday night, police arrested Anu (38), Prasad (34), Murali (38), Anandan (55), and Bipin (30), all locals engaged in various jobs. A court remanded them to judicial custody on Friday.
Four of the accused are associated with the BJP and the RSS. Investigators also found that two of them, Murali and Anu, were earlier named in a violent attack case around 15 years ago involving assaults on workers linked to the DYFI and CITU. Murali is also an accused in another case related to an attack on Stephen, a CITU headload worker, which is currently pending before the Kerala High Court.