Click to play videoNew Delhi: A sessions Court in Kozhikode on Thursday pronounced life sentence on 62 of 63 convicts in 2001’s Marad carnage case. One convict, who has already served five years in jail, was released.
The Court said death sentence was not necessary as it was not a “rarest of rare cases.”
In December 2007, the court had ordered cancellation of bail granted to the convicts and added that those absolved of the charges be set free immediately. Charges of murder had been framed against 62 of the convicts, while one had been held guilty of misusing a place of worship for carrying out the attack.
THE KILLINGS
In May 2003, 40 assailants, all from a minority community, came in a boat across the Chaliyar river and attacked the Hindu fishermen resting on Marad beach near Kozhikode, killing eight. The dead also included one of the accused who was killed during the attack.
The communal violence, worst-ever in the state's history, was said to be in sequel to the attack that took place in the same area a year before in which five persons — three Muslims and two Hindus — were killed.
T P Mohammadali, brother of Aboobacker who was killed in the 2001 incident, is the prime accused in the case while Aboobacker's son Vijili is the seventh accused.
While the case was handed over to the Crime Branch on May 5, 2003, the Special Court was set up in 2004.
The accused were charged under various sections of IPC, Arms Act, Explosive Substances Act and the Religious Institution (Prevention of Misuse) Act.
(With PTI inputs)
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