Kerala Professor's Hand Cut Off 13 Years Ago, Main Accused Arrested Today

In a major breakthrough, the last accused in the Kerala professor hand-chopping case has been arrested by the National Investigation Agency today, 13 years after the crime.

Savad, who was an activist of the banned Popular Front of India, chopped off the right palm of professor TJ Joseph for his alleged remarks against Prophet Mohammed in a question paper prepared for the internal examination of B Com students at Newman College in Idukki district's Thodupuzha. Savad - carrying a reward of Rs 10 lakh for his arrest - was caught from Mattannur in the northern Kerala district of Kannur.

The professor was attacked while he along with his family was returning from a church after the Sunday morning mass on July 4, 2010. The attackers had also thrown a bomb before escaping from the scene.

The attackers allegedly told him he was being punished for his "sacrilegious" reference to the Prophet in the question paper he had set for second-year students.

A police case was registered the same day in Ernakulam District. The case was subsequently taken over by the NIA.

Nineteen accused have so far been convicted in the case. Of them, three have been convicted for life and ten others sent to eight years of rigorous imprisonment.

All the accused in the case were either leaders or activists of the Popular Front of India or PFI and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), and were actively involved in the criminal conspiracy that led to the attack on the professor, the NIA.

Savad, identified as the main accused, was charge-sheeted on January 10, 2011, in the case, one of the earliest such incidents in India reflecting the ideology of violent extremism being pursued by the Popular Front of India, the anti-terror agency said.

The attack on the professor was one of the cases that led to the ban of the organisation.

The Day Of The Attack

In a 2015 interview with NDTV, Mr Joseph said that before that July Sunday morning in 2010, there had been "three attempts to attack me at my home, but fortunately, I had narrow escapes".

"On the day of the attack, I remember seven of them blocking my car and approaching us. As the car was locked from inside, they broke the glass and pulled me out...The attackers injured me all over and severed my right hand," he had recounted.

He underwent a hand transplantation and four more surgeries after the attack.

What Led To The Attack?

"The entire episode started with a question paper that I set for second-semester B Com students for a class test. A question in the paper was to correct the punctuation for the given sentences. In one such sentence, I named a character Muhammad. I named the character very casually and didn't imagine that people would associate it with any religious sentiments," the former college professor had told NDTV.

Soon after the class test, he started getting threats.

Amid the controversies, he was first suspended and then dismissed by the college.

Four years after the attack, Mr Joseph's wife Salomy died by suicide on Marc 20, 2014. "Things were getting fine as I got a positive court verdict, saying that I was not guilty, and my college management agreed to take me back in November 2013. But, again things turned upside down as they kept postponing their decision to allow me back to work. This was really disturbing for her and we were financially strained. She couldn't take anymore backlash," Mr Joseph said.

Her death sparked huge protests and he was reinstated on the day of his retirement.