Author: M P Prashanth
Publication: The New Indian Express
Date: June 10, 2003
The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML)
is understood to have intervened in the Crime Branch investigation into
the Marad carnage, as the party felt that a proper probe would land it
in deep trouble.
Sources in the police told The New
Indian Express that the investigation lost its steam after a senior Crime
Branch officer interceded to save the IUML.
Majority of the arrests effected
by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) were stage-managed by a district
office-bearer of the IUML. The 15 persons in the wanted list published
by the Crime Branch were actually made to surrender before the team, and
not picked up by the police as claimed by the team.
This was done as a quid pro quo
to bury the IUML leader's involvement in the incident. The leader's name
had figured in the confessions of some of the arrested. His telephone number
was found in the pocket diary and in the mobile phone recovered by the
police. But no further probe was conducted in this direction.
The IUML intervention has caused
considerable resentment among a section of the Crime Branch team which
believes that the entire investigation will be torpedoed if any political
intervention is allowed.
What worries IUML is the fact that
majority of the arrested are its workers. Some of them have strong links
with extremist organizations like the NDF. If these links are exposed,
the party's secular postures will suffer serious damage.
