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Kerala Electricity Minister AK Balan and seven others, including a CPI-M MP and MLA, have been sentenced to two years imprisonment for disrupting train services during a statewide strike. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) had organised the protest in December 2000.

The Ottapalam Judicial First Class Magistrate sentenced Balan, K Ajaya Kumar, Ottapalam MP, and KK Chandran, MLA, for blocking rail traffic and impeding police on a petition filed by the Railway Protection Force. The court has given them time till April 25 to appeal in a higher court.

The court acquitted NN Krishnadas, Palakkad MP, and T Sivasadasa Menon, a former minister, in the absence of evidence of their involvement in the train blockade.

The youth wing of the ruling CPI-M, the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), had called the agitation to protest against the failure of the then Congress-led United Democratic Front government in checking growing unemployment.

The judgment follows a series of convictions in strike-related cases. Earlier this month, a Wayanad district court had sentenced 24 Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha activists in connection with a 2003 agitation that turned violent. 

Balan said he would move the higher court against the verdict immediately. Ajay Kumar said the court needed to display greater understanding in cases related to agitations on matters concerning the public.