The National Investigation Agency is planning to move the Supreme Court against the verdict of the Kerala high court that acquitted all accused in the Kozhikode twin blasts case and passed serious observations against the premier probe agency, said a senior official of the agency.
The agency has got the permission from the ministry concerned, the official said on the condition of anonymity.
Twin blasts rocked the north Kerala city on March 3, 2006. The first accused in the case, Thadiyantavida Nazeer, a self-styled commander of terrorist outfit Lakshar- e-Taiba, was arrested from a village along the India-Bangladesh border in 2009. The NIA had charge-sheeted seven persons in 2010 and one of the accused was later killed in an encounter with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir. Two accused are still at large and two were acquitted by the trial court while Thadiyantavida Nazeer and S Shafaz were awarded double life-term in 2013.
This was the first case taken up by the NIA in the state. Besides acquittal of both, a division bench of Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice Ziyad Rahman also dismissed an appeal filed by the NIA challenging the acquittal of two other accused earlier, Abdul Halim and Abubacker Yousef. “There is no reliable evidence on the preparation or commission of the crime that incriminates the accused beyond a reasonable doubt,” the court observed in 101-page verdict.
The court said the alleged conspiracy was not proven beyond reasonable doubt and the investigating agency failed to discover anything related to the crime. The approver in the case is not a reliable witness and his role in the crime is very suspect and cannot be believed. Investigators were groping in the dark for almost four years until the third accused confessed about his role in the Kozhikode case after being arrested in another blast cse, the court observed. One of the accused in the case had turned an approver during the trial and the court found that the case was built up on his disclosure.
“In the present case there is no lengthy statement, but the disclosure record confession linking the accused with the crime so unabashedly that none could escape innuendo. This is flagrant violation of Section 25 and 26 of the Evidences Act and tends to impress upon the court the need to convict, even without proof beyond reasonable doubt,” said the verdict. The court cited another lapse on the part of the NIA. The agency said that the first and third accused had allegedly carried out two experimental blasts on a beach in the city earlier but there were no discovery of material objects from the site.
After planting two low-intensity bombs the accused later informed the district collector and media houses about them. Two people including a policeman were injured when one of the bombs went off while searching for them. Initially the case was investigated by the state police but later handed over to the NIA. The NIA said blasts were carried out by the accused to protest denial of bail to the accused in second Marad communal riot case.
