Marad Carnage: FIR Against Muslim League, NDF, Mosque Commitee members

The Muslim League in Kerala, facing the charge of controlling the State police from behind the scenes, encountered yet another embarrassment on Tuesday with respect to the massacre of eight Hindu fishermen in Marad near Kozhikode in 2003 after details of the Crime Branch’s FIR that described its two top leaders as prime suspects in the case coming out through the media.

According to the FIR registered with a court in Kozhikode in September, 2010, Muslim League’s State secretary MC Mayin Haji and its Beypore area secretary PP Moideen Koya were suspected of indulging in criminal conspiracy for the massacre and aiding and abetting the crime.

The FIR, registered in the First Class Judicial Magistrate Court – 5 of Kozhikode, was prepared by the Crime Branch after preliminary inquiries into the conspiracy behind the Marad massacre of May 2, 2003 in which eight Hindus were chopped to death.

The charges leveled against Haji and Koya were under Sections 302 (homicide), 120b (criminal conspiracy) and 109 (incitement for violence) of the IPC. The probe was held as per the recommendation of the Justice Thomas P Joseph Commission which inquired into the massacre. It had recommended a high-level probe into the conspiracy, foreign hand and funding behind the massacre.

The FIR had also found Islamist Popular Front of India, some members of a Marad mosque committee and certain extremists as suspects in the case. However, the only persons referred to by their names in the report were the two Muslim League leaders. The FIR was registered in the court by DySP P Raghunath of the Crime Branch headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram.

Recently, the UDF Government headed by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, also in charge of Home, transferred the Superintendent of Police (Crime Branch) who was heading the probe to the State Human Rights Commission in Thiruvananthapuram, effectively putting a freeze on the SIT at a critical juncture.

It is alleged that the Government deliberately transferred the SP to derail the investigation for protecting the Muslim league and its leaders.

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