The acquittal of two prime accused, Thadiyantavide Nazeer aka Ummer Haji, an alleged operative of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Shafas Shamsudeen, in the Kozhikode twin blast case of 16 years ago is being perceived as a setback for the National Investigation Agency (NIA) which probed the first terror- linked case in the State.
In its 100-page judgment, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court comprising Justice K. Vinod Chandran and Justice Ziyad Rahman pulled up India’s premier agency for its apathetic attitude in collecting independent evidence.
The investigators did not make a concerted effort to “go out in the sun” to collect independent evidence of the version of the accused,the court observed.
