A day after the Changanassery police arrested five people in a case charged for making sleazy phone calls to a woman, the complainant on Monday raised serious charges against the police action.
The victim, a 46-year-old women, who is a tailor at Vakathanam near Changanassery, said Shaji Anari, one of the people arrested by the police, was innocent. She said Shaji had only tried to help her. Shaji is a leader of a Dalit Adivasi collective.
The victim was the state president of the women's wing of a Dalit organisation called Kerala Cheramar Sangham. She quit the post recently as, she said, she did not want to drag the organisation into the case.
“I was shocked to find Shaji Anari among the arrested. He is innocent. He is a long term family friend who has been trying to help me,” the victim told Onmanorama.
She charged the police with deleting the WhatsApp chats between her and Shaji, when they took her phone for examination.
She said she had sought the help of Shaji to find out about one Ratheesh, who made a sleazy call to her number first. The police on Sunday arrested Ratheesh also.
“Shaji is a native of Anari in Alappuzha. When I got a call from someone called Ratheesh Anari, I asked Shaji if he knew about such a person. Shaji, in turn, found that Ratheesh is an autodriver known to him. When Shaji confronted him, he said multiple stories about finding my phone number. First he said the number was sent to him by a friend. Then he said he got it from the walls of a toilet in a government hospital in Thiruvalla. Finally, he said he found the number from Shaji's own diary which he found in Shaji's car. He had used Shaji's car to go to Thiruvananthapuram. Now the police have arrested Shaji saying it was he who instigated Ratheesh to call me,” Jessy told Onmanorama.
“Shaji sir had sent me the voice clippings of Ratheesh's confessions. However, yesterday when the police returned my phone after examining it, all those voice clips were deleted,” Jessy said.
Jessy alleged that the police were trying to wind up the case in a haste.
“They are not ready to question the people whose numbers I have shared with them,” she said.
Jessy said she has been receiving sleazy calls even after the news of her complaint broke.
Onmanorama has not received a response from the police on these allegations despite trying to contact the investigation officer multiple times. The circle inspector's phone was busy throughout the day. He is yet to respond to a message from Onmanorama.
Five persons were arrested on Sunday for denigrating the woman by propagating her mobile phone number with ulterior motives.
The arrested persons are Ratheesh,39, of Palathara Colony, Shaji, 46, of Haripad, Anikuttan, 29, of Nedumkunnam, Nishanth, 34, of Wadakancherry and Vipin, 34, of Thrissur.
Ernakulam range DIG Neeraj Kumar Gupta arrived at Changanassery on Sunday to coordinate the investigation.
The evidence was collected from details available in the phone of the aggrieved woman. The investigation team had summoned 13 persons from different districts for questioning on Sunday. The arrest of five of them were recorded and others were let off for the time after recording their statements.
Though the woman had filed a complaint in connection with the phone calls, the police did not register a case initially. Subsequently she narrated her plight on social media. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan took note of the matter, following which the police intensified the probe.
