COIMBATORE: ‘Engineer’ Hyder Ali, accused of attacking Hindu Munnani leaders in 1989, was acquitted, on the ground that charges against him were not proved by the investigative agency, here on Tuesday.
45-year-old Hyder Ali and 11 others were accused of attacking a group of Hindu leaders while they were returning from the funeral procession of a right-wing activist, Veeraganesh, who was murdered by fundamentalists. An attempt to murder case was registered against Hyder Ali and others by the CB-CID and he was listed as accused number 11. The trial had commenced at the Principal Subordinate Court here in October. The judge, M Ilavarasan acquitted Hyder Ali after asserting that the probe agency had failed to prove charges against him. He also stated that in such cases, the benefit of doubt must be given to accused.
Hyder Ali’s defence counsel said that the only assertion against his client made by the CB-CID police was that he had held a soda bottle when the incident had occurred.
Hyder Ali had been lodged in the Coimbatore Central Prison since June, 2014, after being on the run for over two decades. He was arrested from Palakkad by the CB-CID police, Coimbatore unit, based on a tip off.
After the 1989 incident, Ali was accused of being involved in Chennai RSS office blast case. He had gone underground shortly afterwards, after which it was believed that Ali had moved to Saudi Arabia and worked as a civil engineer for over eight years. The RSS bombing case is still pending in the special court here.
Hyder Ali had already been released as he had already got bail in the other case pending against him.