|
Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh: M.K. Azhagiri, son of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, and 12 others were yesterday acquitted of all charges in the 2003 murder of DMK leader and former minister T. Kiruttinan.
Sessions Judge P. Durga Prasad examined 82 out of 114 witnesses. Most of the prosecution witnesses turned hostile during the trial.
Kiruttinan was hacked to death on May 20, 2003 as he was returning from his morning stroll.
Azhagiri was arrested the following day on charges of masterminding the conspiracy to kill the former minister as a result of intra-party feud, arising out of the party's organisational polls.
The prosecution claimed Kiruttinan was murdered because he and Azhagiri were engaged in a turf war in southern Tamil Nadu.
The high-profile case is being tried in this small Andhra Pradesh town, 190km west of Tamil Nadu capital Chennai, since the Supreme Court transferred the trial here last year from a Madurai court.
The bench ruled in August 2007 that allegations of threats to prosecution witnesses - cited by a Tamil Nadu court, indicating Azhagiri's enormous influence - "were disturbing". Kiruttinan, a minister in Karunanidhi's ministry in 1996-2001, handled the party's affairs in Sivaganga district.
Kasargod, Kerala (IANS) A suspected outbreak of chikungunya was reported from Kasargod district in Kerala yesterday.
The cases were reported from Panathadi village, about 70km from the district headquarters. The village borders Karnataka state. A health official at the district medical office said that about 130 suspected cases of chikungunya were reported from the village.
"The patients complained of fever and joints pain. We have sent some blood samples for confirmaton," he said.
|
