Thiruvananthapuram, Dec. 27: Sixty-three people have been convicted for the murder of eight Hindu fishermen in Kerala’s northern Kozhikode district nearly six years ago.

Special judge Babu Mathew P. Joseph acquitted 76 people for want of evidence. He will start delivering sentences on Monday.

On May 3, 2003, some 40 people, all from the minority community, came in a boat across Chaliyar river and attacked the fishermen resting on Marad beach near Kozhikode, killing eight of them. Police fired many rounds in the air and later seized weapons from the premises of a mosque.

The killings were a sequel to deaths of three Muslims and two Hindus in feuds on the same beach the year before.

Among the 63 convicted, two have been booked for misuse of a place for worship and inciting communal hatred.

The Kozhikode administration has clamped prohibitory orders and closed liquor shops in parts of the district to prevent any untoward incident.