By Express News Service

IDUKKI: In a major setback for Electricity Minister M M Mani, Additional District and Sessions Court, Thodupuzha on Saturday dismissed his discharge petition in the sensational Anchery Baby murder case.

Mani, who is also a state secretariat member of CPM, is the second accused in the case. With this, Mani’s future as Minister in the LDF Cabinet has fallen in trouble.

The court also mentioned the prosecution’s request to include CPM Idukki district secretary K K Jayachandran, CITU leader K K Damodaran and two others in the list of accused persons in the case.

It was on November 13, 1982 that Anchery Baby, a Youth Congress leader was shot dead. The case, which had been closed earlier, was reopened with M M Mani making a controversial statement claiming that a list of 13 political opponents were prepared to be killed.

Later, Mani was arrested in November 2012 in a fresh case registered in connection with the murder case.

Pampupara Kuttan, O G Madanan, Varkey Abraham are first, third and fourth accused in the case. As per the prosecution case, M M Mani and K K Jayachandran - who was the Rajakkad area secretary of CPM - had

conspired to kill Baby.

The prosecution also produced the statement of P N Mohan das, former CPM local secretary, as evidence for the case.

Meanwhile, responding to media persons, Mani said that he would file an appeal against the case in higher court. At the same time, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala has demanded the resignation of Mani from the LDF cabinet in view of the court order.