Boycotting LS bypolls can’t be treated as Naxal activity: Mangaluru Court
The Hindu
‘Letters were written as leaders hadn’t fulfilled demands’
Letters written by journalist Vittal Malekudiya about him and other tribal people from Kutloor village of Belthangady taluk in Kudremukh National Park area to boycott Lok Sabha bypolls cannot be construed as “Maoist activity”, said a city session court in its judgment on Thursday, while acquitting him and his father Lingappa.
In the 23-page judgment, third Additional District and Sessions judge B.B. Jakati said Mr. Malekudiya, being a student of journalism, wrote the letters because “leaders had not fulfilled long-standing demands of the tribals of Kuthloor village”.
The letter did not suggest that Mr. Malekudiya and his father were engaged in Naxal activities or were concealing or harbouring absconding Maoist activists Vikram Gowda, Pradeepa, John, Prabha, and Sundari, the judge said.