Idukki: Arjun Sundar, the acquitted accused in the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in Vandiperiyar had tried to influence the brother of the victim to give statements in a way that cops never doubted his involvement in the case.
“ When the police found that my sister was raped and murdered they started questioning dwellers in the estate lane house at Churakkulam Estate. Arjun almost succeeded in making us believe that he was with me, Sujin and Ashok ( witnesses in the case) all the time starting from 2.30 pm to 3.30 pm when the crime occurred," the victim's brother told a news channel.
"But actually, that was not true. Ashok, Sajin and I were spending time below the jackfruit tree when Ashok was cutting my hair. Arjun was not with us during this time. But, as the police started questioning, he wanted all of us to say that all the four were together under the tree while my haircutting was being done,” he added.
He further said that while the haircutting was being done he was simultaneously attending the online class on the fateful day of June 30, 2021, for an hour. Arjun came with us near the jackfruit tree and wanted Sajin to pluck some passion fruits. As Sajin plucked the same for him from the nearby plot, he went back to his lane house with the fruits and returned just before the haircutting was over and it was a few minutes before 3.30 pm, he added.
“When the cops started frequenting the lane houses in the next few days after the crime, the residents got the clue that they were looking for someone living there and I heard Arjun telling a person living in the lane house that there was no point in cops visiting our lanes as that there was no evidence,” the girl's brother said.
Speaking to Onmanorama the father of the victim said that Arjun wanted to spend time with the victim alone and he had been planning for it. Arjun kept prodding the minor girl and her brother that the latter badly needed a haircut on the day of the crime. “Due to this, my daughter (victim girl) went to Ashok, who used to cut hair during the lockdown period, to ask him to come to our house to cut the hair of my son. The haircut was done under the jackfruit tree for an hour. Unexpectedly, Sujin came to the scene and then Arjun asked him to pluck the passion fruits for him. After plucking the fruits, Sujin returned to his house carrying the fruits,” the father of the victim said.
He further said that he felt that the judgment of the Kattappana Special Court for the POCSO case was done only by considering the claims of the defendant's lawyer. Several aspects of the judgment like the distance of the jackfruit tree from the lanes and the claims regarding the distance between the lane where the crime occurred and the witnesses sitting under the jackfruit trees were wrong. “Those sitting under the jack fruit tree could not see the lane house where the crime occurred,” the father of the victim said.
He said that his family would soon file an appeal in the High Court against the trial court’s verdict that acquitted the accused.
