Hithesh Sanker, forensic surgeon at the Government Medical College Hospital, Thrissur, is struggling hard these days to shrug off the blood-stained memories of the post-mortem examination performed on Ram Narayan Baghel, a Chhattisgarh native, on December 18, 2025.
Over his career spanning a few decades, Dr. Sanker has conducted hundreds of post-mortem examinations. However, the one on Ram Narayan painfully stood out. Not an inch on the 31-year-old migrant worker’s body was left untouched, every part bore the marks of relentless blows. Dr. Sanker says he had never seen a human body so violently assaulted by other humans.
Also read | Concern over xenophobia in Kerala: NGO
The body bore the unmistakable scars of a meticulously executed mob lynching. After Madhu, a tribal youth lynched in Attappady in 2018, the name of Ram Narayan now stands as a haunting reminder of the inhumanity unleashed by a group of people in Kerala.
Ram Narayan reached Palakkad on December 13 in search of work. He stayed with his cousin Sasikanth, a mason at Kanjikode, for a couple of days, but could not find a suitable job. Missing his two children, aged eight and 10, he decided to return to Chhattisgarh. Yet on the afternoon of December 17, he somehow wandered into a residential area at Attappallam, near Walayar, only to be seized, interrogated and brutally lynched by a mob that accused him of theft.
