The disclosure made by a former Superintendent of Police who probed the conspiracy behind the 2003 massacre at Kerala’s Marad village, in which eight Hindus were killed, that Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had tried to influence the probe have triggered a political storm in the State. The former investigator also claimed that a Youth Congress leader had been in contact with a Pakistani national who could have some links with the ghastly incident.
On Sunday, Chief Minister Chandy rejected the charge that his office had intervened in the Marad massacre probe and asked the former SP to reveal details of his findings amid demands from organisations like the Hindu Aikya Vedi and the BJP for explanation. Speaking at a function organised by the Hindu Aikya Vedi at Marad on the 11th anniversary of the massacre on Friday, former SP
(Crime Branch) CM Pradeep Kumar, who had headed a special investigation team, had also said that the massacre was not just a riot but an extremist act with possible foreign links intended at spreading terror across the northern Malabar region. On the night of May 2, 2003, eight Hindu fishermen were hacked to death at Marad, a fishing village in Kozhikode district. A Muslim also had lost life in the incident.
Despite the obvious planning gone into it, the incident was described as a reaction to the Marad 1 riots of January 2-3, 2002 in which five people were killed. According to Pradeep Kumar, the young political leader from Kozhikode had been in telephonic contact with Pakistani national Fahad, who had stayed in Kozhikode for a long time with the mission of fund management for terror acts. But when questioned, he ridiculed the police with a claim that some other people could have used his mobile which had been lost on the beach.
Pradeep Kumar, who took up the investigation into the conspiracy behind the massacre in June, 2010, said when he reported to his superior officer on the need to probe the young leader’s links, the reply he got was that the Chief Minister wanted a soft approach on the case. He added that he was also told that the Chief Minister had instructed not to give publicity to the matter.
At the Aikya Vedi function, Pradeep Kumar also revealed that the CBI had refused to take up the investigation into the conspiracy because the State Government had not effectively presented the inferences and instructions of the Justice Thomas P Joseph Commission which inquired into the incident. The commission had recommended a thorough probe by a Central agency into the conspiracy, possible external hand, funding and other serious aspects of the massacre. Pradeep Kumar said that his investigation had found evidences that agreed with the judicial panel’s findings and recommendations.
According to him, Islamist leader Abdul Nasser Madani, presently under detention in a Bangalore jail as a key accused in the case pertaining to the Bangalore blasts, had prior information on the massacre of Marad. Madani’s party, the PDP, denied this saying that the judicial commission had examined him and had found him innocent.Chief Minister Chandy denied the contents of Pradeep Kumar’s disclosures. “I had not known of anything like this. If such information had reached my office, there should be records. What he has said is serious. let him provide details. He should have formally informed the concerned authorities of his findings at that time,” Chandy said in Kottayam on Sunday.
However, the State BJP wanted the Chief Minister to explain why he had instructed freezing of the probe against the Youth Congress leader if he had done so. He alleged that no proper probe had been instituted into the conspiracy and foreign links behind the massacre because the Congress-led UDF’s rule in the State was being controlled by the Muslim league. The Crime Branch probe headed by Pradeep Kumar was instituted by the former CPI(M)-headed lDF Government in June, 2010 but he was shifted out by the present Chandy Government, in which the Muslim league was a major partner. The probe team had found that two senior Muslim league leaders could have indulged in a conspiracy and aided and abetted the crime.