The State Home Department has suspended Konni Station House Officer (SHO) Sreejith P and DySP Rajappan T for gross dereliction of duty and procedural lapses in handling a POCSO case in which a lawyer was the first accused. The Kerala High Court had hailed the survivor in the case as a beacon of hope after she cleared the All India Forensic Science Entrance Examination. The court lauded her accomplishment while rejecting the bail plea of Noushad, who is the first accused in the case. He had served as the Government pleader between 2011 and 2016.

Aranmula police registered the case in December 2024 following a complaint that a 17-year-old girl was molested in a hotel by Noushad, and the survivor's aunt was named as the second accused. The details of the case began to emerge after the survivor's father, who was employed abroad, submitted a complaint to the District Police Chief, Pathanamthitta, in 2024. He handed over a pen drive containing voice recordings, alleging that his daughter had been sexually assaulted.

The survivor's parents were estranged and a divorce petition was pending in the court. The survivor's father had hired Noushad to represent him in the case. Since he was abroad, he executed a Power of Attorney in favour of his sister, authorising her to represent him in the divorce proceedings.

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The survivor had earlier been subjected to sexual violence and another case was registered at the Konni police station in 2022. Her aunt introduced her to Noushad in connection with this case. When the survivor's father returned to Kerala from abroad, he came across voice clips stored on his mother's mobile phone. He understood that his daughter had been subjected to aggravated penetrative sexual assault by Noushad and his sister had facilitated the crime. It was then that he submitted the complaint to the Pathanamthitta District Police Chief.

As per the order issued by the Home Department, the petition was forwarded to the SHO, Konni, for necessary action and report. However, an FIR was not registered and the SHO, instead, assigned a woman civil police officer to record the statement of the survivor. The survivor however told the police that her father's complaint was false and that the voice recordings had been manipulated. The police recorded this statement on video.

The Home Department noted that no further legal proceedings were initiated by the SHO and DySP in spite of the gravity of allegations in the complaint. In September 2024, the SHO submitted a report stating that appropriate steps would be taken to arrange counselling for the victim through the Child Welfare Committee (CWC). However, no tangible progress was made in this regard thereafter, the order noted.

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In December 2024, the survivor directly contacted the Child Helpline and disclosed the circumstances. She was rescued from her home and shifted to Nirbhaya home, Konni. The CWC, which was aware of the matter through the complaint filed by her father in August 2024, forwarded the matter to the SHO only in December. Two days after the survivor contacted the Helpline, Noushad and the survivor's aunt visited the office of the Chairman of CWC and attempted to settle the matter. The survivor was unwilling for a compromise and the CWC officials reported the matter to the police. The Home Department noted that this was corroborated through the analysis of the Call Detail Records (CDRs) of Noushad, his wife, and the survivor's aunt.

Delay in communication from the CWC to the police appears to have provided an opportunity for the accused persons to tamper with evidence and interfere with the due course of justice by attempting an unlawful compromise, the Home Department cited in the order. Later, the survivor's statement was collected in which she said that she was sexually assaulted at a hotel in Kozhencherry. Konni police, instead of registering an FIR, transferred the case to the Aranmula police station without registering a case for abduction. The residence of the girl from where she was taken to the hotel falls within Konni station limits.

The State Police Chief ordered disciplinary action against Sreejith P and Rajappan T after it was revealed that there was gross dereliction of duty and procedural lapses. "Furthermore, the matter reflects a serious failure in supervisory responsibility and failure to exercise due diligence by the DySP," the order said.

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