Kochi: The Kerala High Court has acquitted the Kozhikode twin-blasts case accused Thadiyantavide Nazeer and Shafas. Both the accused had appealed against the NIA court.
Earlier, two other accused, Abdul Halim and Aboobacker Yousaf, were acquitted by the trial court.
The High Court division bench found that there is no sufficient evidence against the accused in the case. The High Court has also rejected an appeal filed by NIA against this.
Defendants claim that they are innocent in the case and the charges, including UAPA, do not exist, was accepted by the court.
In the Kozhikode twin-blast case that left two injured, the trial of three of the nine accused in the case is yet to be completed. Two of them are still absconding.
In 2013, NIA Special Court in Kochi had sentenced 13 accused to life imprisonment in the case. Nazeer, belonging to Kannur, was suspected as the mastermind of this operation as well as many other terror incidents. He was suspected to be LeT's Southern Commander.
According to the NIA, Ashar and the other absconding accused P P Yusuf were ‘party’ to the criminal conspiracy hatched by prime accused T Naseer, Safas and others to carry the bomb blasts in Kozhikode KSRTC and mofussil bus stands on March 3, 2006. As per the NIA report, the blasts were planned and executed in protest against the denial of bail to some Muslim accused in the 2003 Marad anti-Hindu riots case.
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