Kasaragod: On May 28, 2021 -- at the peak of the second wave of the pandemic -- Kasaragod Police hit headlines when they arrested three persons and claimed to have seized 240kg of marijuana from a tourist bus returning from Andhra Pradesh.

The marijuana was in eight sacks stacked up in the luggage box of the bus, police said.

The then Kasaragod DySP P P Sadanandan identified the accused as Mohammed Rahis (25), Mohamed Haneef (43) -- both from Chengala grama panchayat; and K Mohammed Kunhi (30) of Periyadukka in Mogral-Puthur grama panchayat.

After questioning the accused, the police raided the house of the second accused Haneef the same day and reportedly impounded another 2kg of marijuana. By evening, they displayed a pistol, a baseball bat, a dagger, and a machete, and claimed these "weapons" were also seized from Haneef's house. They also released a photograph of the DySP and the officers who made the seizure and arrest.

Two years later, on July 10, the Kasaragod Additional Sessions Court (II) acquitted all three accused for lack of evidence.

According to a defence lawyer, the police botched up the documentation and contradicted themselves in court. The biggest goof up was that the pistol seized from Haneef's house turned into a torch in the court, said advocate K P Pradeep Kumar, who represented the first accused Mohammed Rahis. "The prosecution could not satisfactorily explain the contradictions," he said.

Haneef was represented by advocate A C Sukumaran and Mohammed Kunhi was represented by advocate I V Pramod.

Botched up documentation
The tourist bus belonged to Rahis' father. According to the police, they took special permission from the Regional Transport Office to take migrant workers home. While returning, they attempted to smuggle in marijuana.

Based on a tip-off to DySP Sadananadan, the Vidyanagar Station House Officer - Inspector Sreejith Koderi and his team waylaid the empty bus at Chettumkuzhi near Vidyanagar, and reportedly impounded eight sacks of marijuana, weighing 240kg.

"Sreejith Koderi told the court that he and his team returned to the police station by 11.09 am and registered the case. But another officer said they were at the site at 12.45 pm," said advocate Pradeep Kumar.

After questioning the accused, Inspector Koderi and his officers raided Haneef's house the same day. "But Koderi's notebook that was submitted to the court said they went to the house at 11 pm on May 28. But their search list recorded the time as 3 pm," the advocate said.

To be sure, the time could not be 11 pm because the police shared the details of the seizure with reporters by evening. Again, the 2kg of marijuana reportedly seized from Haneef's house was not weighed there, said Pradeep Kumar.

It is also baffling how trained police officers could not make out the difference between a torch and a pistol.

The police had also collected 25g of marijuana from each of the eight sacks and sent them for lab tests. "But at the lab, one sample had 28 grams and another sample had 18 grams. The prosecution could not explain these discrepancies," he said.

The prosecution had also produced two eyewitnesses. But they did not identify the accused. "They told the court that they saw police retrieving sacks of marijuana from inside and from the luggage box of the bus. That also cannot be true because police told the court that all the eight sacks were in the luggage box," he said.

Ideally, the seizure from Haneef's house should be another case, advocate Pradeep Kumar said. But the police and the prosecution clubbed the two cases and made a botch of things, he said.