The Kozhikode Special Additional Sessions Court (Marad Cases) has acquitted all the accused in the Thamarassery forest office attack case citing the lack of any evidence and witnesses’ account against them. There were 34 accused in the case in which the majority were farmers from rural areas of Kozhikode.
The examination of 29 witnesses had been completed ahead of pronouncing the final verdict on Wednesday. Three of the key witnesses - Forest Range officer T.S. Saju, Beat Forest Officer Subrahmanyan, and Civil Police Officer Suresh - had turned hostile during the trial procedure.
The defence counsel argued that all those who were arraigned in the case had actually no role in the attack. The investigation team was accused of fabricating the case against the suspects who were all farmers whose lives were hit by the legal battle.
It was on November 15, 2013 that the attack on the forest office took place during a protest against the implementation of the Kasturirangan panel report. The protesters had set afire many documents along with the office apart from attacking the forest officials. The incident had caused a total loss of ₹77 lakh for the Forest department.
There were also attacks against several other vehicles parked near the Thamarassery forest office. Journalists too had faced the wrath of the protesters who had created a stormy scene at the spot. The attackers reached the spot on trucks and goods carriers.
Considering the grave nature of the offence, the case was handled by the District Crime Branch after a preliminary investigation by the local police. As all the key witnesses turned hostile during the trial proceedings, the prosecution was failing to prove the charges against the accused.
It was on December 1, 2022 that the trial began in the case. The prosecution was primarily dependent on the certified copies of various key documents such as scene mahazar and statement of the witnesses obtained from the court to try the case subsequent to the suspicious missing of the case diary. Though an inquiry was ordered into the incident, there was no progress to track the reasons.
