Idukki: Amid protests over the POCSO court order acquitting the person who was booked for raping and murdering a six-year-old girl in Vandiperiyar, rivalry between the families of the victim and accused ended up in violence. On Saturday morning, the girl's father was attacked by a relative of Arjun, the man who was acquitted in the case. Arjun's relative Palraj reportedly stabbed the victim's father in Vandiperiyar town.
Manorama News reported that the father of the girl suffered injuries on his back and legs in the attack. He is undergoing treatment at a Government Hospital in Vandiperiyar. It is learnt that Palraj stabbed the girl's father to wreak vengeance. Police have intensified search to nab Palraj, say reports.
According to witnesses, a quarrel between the duo led to the attack. Arjun's relatives were forced to move to Tamil Nadu amid protest against the family over the child rape and murder case.
It was on December 14, a Special Fast Track court in Kattappana acquitted Arjun of raping and murdering the minor citing lack of evidence. The judge read out a single line that the “prosecution failed to prove the case and the accused has been acquitted” while pronouncing the judgment.
The case
Arjun allegedly sexually assaulted and murdered the six-year-old girl in 2021. She was found hanging in a room at the estate layam (settlement huts of estate workers).
The incident was first considered as a suicide by cops, however, the accused Arjun, 22, a local DYFI worker, was later arraigned in the case with charges of rape, murder and sections of the POCSO Act. The prosecution claimed that the accused had been sexually exploiting the girl since she was three years old by luring her with chocolates. The accused, who was close to the girl's family used to sexually abuse the child when both her parents went out for work.
