The Kozhikode Chief Judicial Magistrate Court on Tuesday acquitted two persons accused of running a parallel telephone exchange in Kozhikode city.
Their names were given as Rafeek, a native of Areekkod, and Subair, a native of Kannur. The case was registered in 2005 and the Crime Branch began a probe in 2014. Shafeek, another accused, is at large. The three reportedly ran the telephone exchange from a building adjacent to the KSRTC bus station and a nearby house. The prosecution had claimed that the government incurred a loss of ₹94 lakh as the accused diverted international calls through the internet as local calls. Chief Judicial Magistrate Fathima Beevi pointed out that the prosecution could not prove that the accused were operating from the building.
