Activist Gul Muhammed Nadeer, who was taken into custody from the Government Medical College Hospital, Kozhikode, on Monday for his suspected ‘Maoist’ links, was let off by the Aralam police here on Tuesday for want of ‘sufficient evidence’.
He was taken into custody while he was visiting writer and theatre activist Kamal C. Chavara, who had been admitted to the hospital following uneasiness after his release by the Karunagapally police who had detained him on a complaint of insulting the national anthem.
According to the police, further evidence was required to effect the arrest as the investigation did not match the statement of witnesses.
“From the available investigation and records, the evidence was not sufficient to effect the arrest of Mr. Nadeer,” said District Police Chief K. Sanjay Kumar. When contacted, he told The Hindu that Mr. Nadeer was asked to come to Kannur with the police for the investigation as he was a suspect. There were, however, a few contradictions between what he told the police in his detailed statement and the accounts of the complainant and witnesses,” he said adding that it would require some more time to examine those contradictions.
Mr. Nadeer was named suspect in a case registered by the police on a complaint by an Adivasi woman near Aralam that six armed Maoists had been sighted in the area on March 3. The complaint said that the six persons, all in uniform, had come to her house and tried to motivate her to join them. The police said that on March 16, the complainant had identified all six persons from photographs and Mr. Nadeer was one of them.
The investigating team in June had even met Mr. Nadeer’s father to inform him that his son was an accused in the case, the police said. The team had been told that he had left for the Gulf. As he was mostly abroad or outside the State, the police thought that he was absconding, an officer said.
The police also confirmed that the investigating team went to the house of Mr. Nadeer at Balussery in Kozhikode on Tuesday as part of the verification of the statement given by him. It was done to verify his antecedents, the police said.
Denying high-handedness in detaining Mr. Nadeer, the police said his custody for verification and his release were based on professional investigation.
Chavara ends fast
Writer and theatre activist Kamal C. Chavara, who was on hunger strike at the Kozhikode Government Medical College Hospital from Monday in protest against the registering of a case against him under Section 124A (sedition) of the IPC, called off his fast on Tuesday. This was after the Home Department clarified that no case under sedition had been charged against him.
Kamal had threatened to go on a hunger strike until the police dropped the charges against him and released bystander Nadeer.
