The Nayagarh District and Sessions Judge Court here on Wednesday acquitted eight suspected Maoists in connection with the 2008 Maoist attack and loot of weapons from the district police armoury.
The court acquitted the accused of being involved in the daredevil attack due to lack of evidence against them.
The acquitted persons included Kamalakant Sethy and Chandrabati Tukuruka of Ranapur, Kishore Jena of Delang in Puri, Bikram Mallick and Sushil Behera of Aska, Ranjit Sana and Rabi Dulai of West Bengal and Asutosh Soren of Jharkhand.
All the Maoists were accused of attacking and looting the Nayagarh police station and armoury on February 16, 2008. They were also allegedly involved in the multiple attacks on Nayagarh police training school, Daspalla police station and Mahipur police outpost.
Fourteen people including 13 policemen were killed while 10 others were injured in the attack. After looting the district armoury in Nayagarh, the Maoists virtually had laid siege to the town for several hours.