Blood-stained towel not in court; Crucial evidence in Thalassery Fasal murder case missing

KANNUR: A towel, the mainour in the Thalassery Fasal murder case, has gone missing from the court. Fasal's blood-stained towel was a crucial piece of evidence in the case. The CBI had asked for the towel to be produced during the hearing of the case the previous day. A subsequent check found that the towel was missing.

The towel was kept in a sealed cover. The court recorded the missing and doubts it was gnawed by rats. CBI sources say that further investigation is needed to ascertain how the towel went missing. After Fasal's murder, the accused had dumped the blood-stained towel at a different location in a bid to mislead the investigation. It was while examining the witness who first saw the towel that the CBI informed the court about the missing.

On October 22, 2006, an NDF activist named Mohammed Fasal was murdered in Thalassery. Fasal, who distributed newspapers in the area, was killed near the Saidar Mosque in Thalassery on the morning of the fasting day. The Fasal murder became the first political murder case from Kannur to be investigated by the CBI. The CBI filed a chargesheet in the Fasal murder case, naming eight CPM members, including CPM leaders Karayi Rajan and Karayi Chandrasekharan, as accused.