MADURAI: If it was not for the high court intervention and the timely judgments, things would have been worse in Thoothukudi," read a report from NGO People’s Watch, which was released during the first anniversary of the Tuticorin police firings, in which 13 people were killed and hundreds injured.

The courts made several significant directives in the case which rattled the conscience of the public in recent times. If not for the court’s intervention, the investigation would have still been with the state police and not much would have come out of it, said the NGO.