KOZHIKODE: The skeletons from the past are still haunting the perpetrators and conspirators of the second Marad massacre in which nine persons were killed on May 2, 2003 at Marad, a communally sensitive coastal village, near Kozhikode. It was a sequel to an earlier massacre in which five people were killed in 2002. The affidavit filed by the CBI in the High Court the other day expressing its willingness to investigate the larger conspiracy behind the massacre was a U-turn from its earlier stand.
The court was considering a petition filed by social worker Kolakkadan Moosa Haji filed in 2012 demanding a CBI probe. Earlier, the LDF government also had approached the HC demanding the same. Both the massacres took place when the UDF was in power and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) was its constituent. It was the LDF government that appointed the ‘Justice Thomas P. Joseph commission’ to probe the death of a total of 14 persons in two riots.
The commission recommended the formation of a special wing with members of Intelligence Bureau, Central Bureau of Investigation and the directorate of revenue intelligence to investigate the larger conspiracy, including the involvement of fundamentalist elements, source of explosives, international linkages and financial resources that aided and abetted the massacres. In his report, Justice Thomas P. Joseph said that the CB-CID team investigating the massacre “failed or refused” to investigate the facts –which the commission described as quite “suspicious and disturbing.”
There were reports that though there was a demand for a CBI probe, the IUML opposed it. Later Mr C. M. Pradeepkumar, who headed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that probed the larger conspiracy, also recommended a CBI probe. He was of the opinion that any team constituted by the state police will not be sufficient to expose the depth and breadth of the conspiracy. On the turn of events, Mr Pradeepkumar told DC that he had sufficient indications for the larger conspiracy.
Now a practising lawyer after retirement, Mr Pradeepkumar said, “there was a deliberate attempt to suppress any attempts to probe into the larger conspiracy. In my affidavit in the High Court, I have placed all evidence that led me to suspect that there was a larger and wider conspiracy which abetted the massacre,” he said. An upright officer, Pradeepkumar was removed from the post of SIT team-head in January 2012 to the State Human Rights panel. Later, he received eight transfers in one year. His interrogation of the IUML and BJP leaders had stirred up a hornets’ nest.
