The Supreme Court on Monday granted bail to 22 accused, sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court and confirmed by the Kerala High Court, in the second Marad riots case despite objections raised by the Kerala government that the riot area was still “communally sensitive.”
A Bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and P.K. Ghose refused to impose any restrictive conditions on the accused before enlarging them on bail, asking the Kerala government to approach the trial court if they want to. The Bench said the accused had already spent 11 years in jail since their arrest in 2003 and there was no point in them continuing behind bars as their criminal appeals against the High Court verdict were pending before the apex court and would take time to be decided on.
Nine persons were killed and many others injured in violence between two communities on the Marad beach at Beypore constituency in Kozhikode district of Kerala on May 2, 2003.
The Court had earlier allowed bail to 23 other accused, including P.P. Moideen Koya, former president of the IUML Beypore constituency, in the same case. Even then, the reason for bail was the extended period of incarceration of the accused. In the earlier order, the court drew attention to the social circumstances of the accused. It had pointed to the long period that the accused - “daily wage labourers eking out a living as coolies and fishermen” - had spent in jail without bail and the “irrevocable financial difficulties” that their families had to suffer.
