Kozhikode blasts: NIA court orders LeT’s South India commander’s production

Kozhikode blasts: NIA court orders Nazeer’s production
VR Jayaraj | Kochi – Daily Pioneer

The Special CBI Court 2 (NIA court), Kochi on Wednesday ordered the production of LeT’s South India commander Thadiyantavide Nazeer and his aide and relative Shafaz, accused in the Kozhikode twin blasts case, before it. Nazeer is the first accused in the case while Shafaz is fourth accused.

The court directed the DGPs of Kerala and Karnataka to provide the necessary police protection for bringing them to Kochi on November 23, the date set for considering the blasts case. The directions were given by the court accepting the plea of the NIA that the duo be brought to Kochi.

Nazeer and Shafaz are presently in the custody of the Karnataka Police in connection with the Bangalore bombings case, in which both of them are accused. The NIA has been trying to bring the duo to Kochi for the case since August, but the demand was continuously avoided on security grounds.

The last time Nazeer and Shafaz were produced in the NIA court in Kochi was on June 23, when the former talked freely to the waiting mediamen to deny his role in any of the extremist cases and to exonerate Abdul Nasser Madani. This had embarrassed the NIA and Karnataka Police and the court.

The court had later issued strict guidelines to the police on the precautions to be taken when the accused in extremist cases were being produced. Nazeer and Shafaz, then kept at the Central Prison at Viyyur, Thrissur, were taken to Bangalore by the Karnataka Police on the production warrants issued in the Bangalore bombings case.

The NIA had filed the chargesheet in the twin blasts case in August, but it had not been able to produce Nazeer and Shafaz in the court even during the follow-up proceedings as the police kept on bringing up the aspect of security risks. It was in this context the agency approached the court for a direction.

In the chargesheet the NIA filed on August 2, it had named Nazeer as first of the seven accused. The blasts case was the first of the six cases that the NIA had taken over in Kerala since last December. The two blasts were carried out by Nazeer and his associates in Kozhikode city on March 3, 2006.

The agency has found that the accused had planned to attack vital Government installations as acts of revenge for denial of bail to the accused in case of the Marad (2) riots of 2003. Eight Hindus were hacked to death in Marad fishing village in Kozhikode district in May, 2003.

The second to seventh accused in the case respectively were Muhammad Azhar, Abdul Halim, Shafaz alias Shamsuddin, Shammi Feroze, KP Yusuf and Aboobacker Yusuf alias Chettippady Yusuf.