Palakkad: The chief minister can be believed only when he puts his words into action, the mother of the girls who died after being tortured in Walayar said.
“It is easy to say, I am with my family’. We will believe the chief minister only if action is taken against officials who sabotaged the case,” she told Manorama.
The case pertains to the death of two minor girls in Walayar in 2017 after they were allegedly sexually assaulted. Their parents have been on a satyagraha protest saying the officials who investigated the case had botched it up and demanding an investigation monitored by the high court.
The eldest child had died on January 13, 2017, while the younger one died on March 4, 2017. The POCSO court in Palakkad had acquitted the accused in October 2019 citing lack of evidence.
She alleged that Kerala Pulayar Maha Sabha (KPMS) leader Punnala Sreekumar had harmed the chances of justice for her children with the promise of a meeting with the Chief Minister. Punnala Sreekumar's supporters took her to Thiruvananthapuram saying they had arranged for a meeting with the Chief Minister, but that was a conspiracy to ensure that she did not talk to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, she said.
They misled her saying there was a meeting in Thiruvananthapuram and that she should submit an application. They denied her the opportunity to meet the commission the next day, she said.
“When we reached Parli from Thiruvananthapuram, we were taken back to Ottapalam and made to stay in a room they had booked. We could have reached home in the time it took us to reach Ottapalam from Parli,” she said. “We realised the whole thing was a conspiracy only when the DySP got a promotion.”
She said the promotion of the DySP could have been blocked had Punnala Sreekumar tried.
The family was told that all the accused would be arrested and that the officers concerned would be removed. Now they are being told that an appeal has gone to the High Court. The appeal is in the case of the children’s death, she said. “The government should be the one taking action against the officials who sabotaged the case, it is not for the court to take such actions,” she said.
She said the case should be investigated under the supervision of the High Court. She said the investigations should be based on the FIR that was dismissed saying there was no proof.
She said what is needed is a re-investigation and not follow-up investigation.
When they went to meet the Chief Minister, he talked about a CBI probe in the case. He said the government would not come in the way of the demands of the family and that it will support them, but now the officials who sabotaged the case have been given double promotion, she said.
"Minister AK Balan has said he does not know why the family is protesting. Two of the accused are CPM activists. The person named Praveen was not an accused. He refused to accept the charge despite being beaten by the police. When he was called again for questioning, he committed suicide out of fear," she added.
There was a sixth person besides the five accused in the police case and the others were released to save this person, the mother of the girls alleged.
