Kasaragod: Twenty-year-old Muhammed Anzar C K, a resident of Chirappuram in Nileshwar municipality, is in judicial custody for the past 24 days after being accused of sexually assaulting and raping his minor girlfriend (17).
The girlfriend told police in the first week of October that Anzar kissed her forcibly and touched her private parts in the school in 2022 and raped her in the parking lot of Bekal's Red Moon Beach in July 2023.
Based on her complaint, Nileshwar police charged Anzar with committing "penetrative sexual assault" and "aggravated sexual assault" under Sections 4 read with 5 and Sections 9 read with 10 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and rape (Section 376(1) of IPC). If convicted on both counts, Anzar will be punished with at least 10 years in prison but the punishment may extend to life imprisonment.
It now appears the youngsters are being punished by the girl's family led by Nileshwar municipal vice-chairman P P Muhammed Rafi (48), because they are in love.
On Friday, when his bail application came up for hearing in Kasaragod's Additional POCSO Court, Anzar's father Aboobaker N P (57) submitted a pen drive with the video statement of the girl. She recorded the video and sent it to her friend, with the direction to hand it over to Anzar's family. The girl is allegedly detained by her family and is not even allowed to attend school.
In the video statement recorded on Thursday, October 26, the girl said she turned 18 years now and that she was beaten with weapons and threatened by her uncle Rafi and forced to file a fake complaint against Anzar. She also sought the court's help to save Anzar and her from her family.
Onmanorama has accessed the video. The girl says: "Now I am 18 years old. Anzar and I are indeed in love. But we never had any physical relationship. I was physically harmed and threatened a lot to make me say whatever I said.
"They used weapons to hurt me. They threatened to kill me. That is the only reason why I had to say all that. Even today, my family and Rafi have detained me in the house. Fearing that I will tell the truth to outsiders, they don't even allow me to go to school.
"They have hurt Anzar a lot. They made me tell all the lies to trap Anzar. Here, I don't even get proper food. Here everybody ill-treats me.
I plead with the court to help me and protect us. He has done nothing to me. They forced me to tell them all that. Please save both of us
"I plead with the court to help me and protect us. He has done nothing to me. They forced me to tell them all that. Please save both of us," she says in the 1.19-minute video.
When contacted, Rafi said he was not aware of the girl's video submitted to the court. But he said Anzar was charged under the POCSO Act because of the girl's in-camera statement given to the magistrate. "I had no role in it," he said.
'Rafi assaulted us and our sons'
Aboobaker said Rafi and his goons kidnapped and roughed up Anzar and his three friends for hours in his house at Orcha on the intervening night of October 2 and 3 because he did not approve of Anzar's relationship with his niece. "He forced the girl to file a fake complaint against my son to cover up his crime," said Aboobaker, a timber businessman.
Anzar's three friends who were assaulted allegedly by Rafi's goons are Alzab C K (20), Hassan P C (18), and Jasim P C (18) of Cheruppuram.
Alzab's father Ahammad P said he got a call from Rafi's phone around 1 am on October 3. "The caller said if I wanted my son alive, come to the mosque at Orcha," Ahammad said.
When Ahammad reached the place in an autorickshaw, Rafi allegedly asked his son's name. "I said Alzab. Then Rafi hit me. When I tried to leave the place, Rafi and around 10 persons who were with him rounded me up and started assaulting me," Ahammad said in his complaint to the State Police Chief Shaik Darvesh Saheb on October 20.
Hassan said Alzab, Jasim and he were forcefully taken away by a gang of 10 persons when they were dining at a restaurant at Orcha around 8.30 pm on October 2. The mosque organised an event to mark Eid-e-Milad an-Nabi. "They asked where is Anzar?" he said. Anzar had left his friends in the restaurant and went to Kanhangad.
The 10 men took the three young men on two two-wheelers and a car and drove to Kanhangad. On the way, they picked up Anzar from Nileshwar and drove to a ground opposite a club at Orcha. "They let Jasim go and began assaulting us," Hassan said in his complaint to the State Police Chief. "There were 15 men. I could recognise Basith, Irshad, Afridi, and Adil," he said.
Around 1 am on October 3, the men allegedly took the three friends to Rafi's house and locked them in a room. "They assaulted us again till 3.45 am. We were rescued by Nileshwar police," Hassan said in his complaint.
"Seeing our injuries, police took us to Nileshwar taluk hospital at 4 am. We told the doctor how we were injured. After treatment, the police let us go," he said.
Outside the police station, Rafi warned them against filing a police complaint, alleged Hassan.
Aboobaker said he filed his complaint against Rafi for assaulting him around 4 am on October 3. The FIR was registered, however, at 2.37 pm later in the day.
Based on the complaint, Muhammed Rafi was charged with wrongful restrain (Section 341 of IPC) and voluntarily causing hurt (Section 323 of IPC).
Police were yet to register an FIR on Hassan's complaint.
'Boys had objectionable videos of the girls in their mobile'
When contacted, Nileshwar municipal vice-chairman Rafi denied the charges of him kidnapping the boys and assaulting them or their fathers. "The incident happened in front of my house," he said.
He said Aboobacker filed a case against him to counter the girl's complaint that led to Anzar's arrest. Rafi said the men who confronted the boys found objectionable videos of the girl in their mobile phones. Police had taken the mobile phones of the three boys. However, in the police report submitted to the court opposing the bail plea, there is no mention of any videos, said a court official who read the report.
The girl was subjected to a medical test and the report mentioned no evidence of a sexual assault, the official said. "Her hymen is intact. On its own, the report does not have much value because a broken or intact hymen doesn't prove or disprove sexual assault. But the medical report becomes relevant against the backdrop of the girl's video statement submitted to the court," the official said.
The bail petition came up for hearing on Saturday, October 28, again. The judge of Additional Sessions Court (I) heard the digital evidence submitted on Friday and put up the case for the next hearing on October 30.