Kannur: The Kannur police has registered 16 cases after a minor girl, hailing from Pappinissery near here, revealed that she was molested and raped by around 19 men, including her father, during the last two years.
According to the police, the girl, a class ten student of a Kannur school, was subjected to sexual abuse by her father for the past two years. The abuse by the father was such a regular occurrence that the girl found it normal, as yet another expression of affection. In between, unknown to the father, the girl was trapped by other men who either raped her at her house or lured her to other places where she was abused. In two instances, the girl was gang-raped. The police has found that around 19 people, including a local DYFI leader, had sexually abused the girl in the last two years. 11 of them have already been arrested.
The brutality came to light after she was gang-raped in a lodge in Parassinikkadavu. The girl had been chatting with a Facebook ID titled 'Anjana', which was the fake ID of M Mridul, one of the accused. On November 13, Mridul, posing as Anjana, persuaded the girl to meet him at Puthiya Theru. On November 13, the girl went to the spot she was asked to but found Mridul in a car. Mridul then talked her into getting inside the car with him. They shot some private moments inside the car. Mridul then invited her to a lodge in Parassinikkadavu. When she protested, Mridul threatened to leak the visuals. She went to the lodge on November 16 where she was raped by four men. The abuse was also recorded, and these images were used by the men to extort money from the girl's brother. Shocked, the brother checked with his sister. She then spilled out all her secrets to her brother.
Her brother then took her to the Woman CI and filed a complaint. The lady CI then forwarded it to the Taliparamba police after a detailed counselling. The very same day, on November 20, the girl's statement was recorded by Judicial First-Class Magistrate, Taliparamba. Cases were charged for gang-rape, rape, and also under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The incidents were not known to her brother and mother, the police said. The men who gang-raped her at the Taliparamba lodge - KV Sandeep, CP Samsuddeen, VC Shabeer, and KV Ayoob - were arrested earlier. Mridul was apprehended today.
The receptionist of the lodge, K Pavithran, was also arrested along with the other four for not informing the police about the incident. Besides Mridul, those arrested today include DYFI Thaliyil unit secretary Nikhil Mohanann, Vaishakh from Vadakkanchery, Jithin from Mattool, Sajin and Shyam, both hailing from Mattool. The Kannur unit of the BJP is already up in arms. "DYFI men are involved in two rape cases in the area. We doubt whether the police investigation will be carried out in the right manner," BJP district president P Sathyaprakash said. He said the BJP would launch a strong agitation if the investigation was not done properly.
16 cases registered in 5 police stations
Followed by the Parassinikkadavu lodge incident, police made a wider search and found that the girl was repeatedly abused by her father from more than two years, and that emotionally tortured the girl, to a point so that the girl could not even identify that it was a crime. Her family - father, mother and brother - lived in a rented house in Pappinissery, and the mother and brother were not aware of the exploitation. Some of the men came to her house and raped her, and in some cases, she was taken to their house. Only in the last incident, she was taken to a lodge. A second gang-rape case has been charged by the Pazhayangadi police. The DySP said that all the other accused would be arrested soon.
Police registered 16 cases – six in Valapattanam, four in Taliparamba, four in Pazhayangadi, one in Edakkad and one in Kudiyanmala.
