Kasaragod: A woman from Kasaragod has accused a CPM leader and Enmakaje panchayat member, Sudhakara S, of sexually exploiting, threatening and harassing her for nearly three decades. 

He is set to retire next year as a teacher from a government-aided primary school in the panchayat. In March 2012, a special CBI court in Kochi sentenced him to life imprisonment for conspiracy in the killing of Enmakaje Youth Congress leader Abdul Jabbar (26). However, in April 2018, the Kerala High Court acquitted him, ruling that the victim’s dying declaration alone was insufficient to establish conspiracy.

The woman alleged that Sudhakara started abusing her in 1995, when she visited the school and met him. He was then 24. “Initially, he used me by promising to marry me. Later, he married another person, but continued to abuse me by threatening to shame me,” she said. “The only period when I lived in peace was the six years he spent in prison in the Jabbar murder case.”

After his release, she claimed he resumed harassment, including sending her sexually explicit images and videos, and messages meant to intimidate and humiliate her.

The CPM said on Thursday that it dropped him from the local committee after the allegations became public. The complainant said she decided to go public and file a police complaint against Sudhakara after he recently threatened to kill her sons and husband. “I had blocked his number. But after he won the election, his men waylaid me and threatened to kill my husband and sons if I did not do what he said,” she said.

“I have lived a dead life all these years. But I cannot allow my husband and children to suffer because of me. I was forced to file the complaint because I know he is capable of carrying out these threats. He is a psycho,” she said.

The woman has emailed her complaint to the State Police Chief, attaching what she claims are explicit videos of the accused, which she says were sent to her by him, along with audio recordings allegedly containing threats of violence and intimidation, including threats to drive away her husband.

This is the second marriage, she said, the accused attempted to break. After he married someone else, her family found her an alliance. However, she alleged that he continued to threaten her and force her into a relationship. 

As her resistance grew, Sudhakara allegedly threatened her husband directly. “I had not disclosed the abuse to him at that time,” she said. The marriage ended in divorce after seven years. She later married her current husband in 2007. 

After the complainant went public, the CPM swung into action and dropped him from the Katukukke Local Committee. "We suspect political rivalry behind the allegations, but since a woman made them, we respect her and dropped him from the local committee," said Kumbla Area Committee secretary C A Zubair. 

Sudhakara also accused political leaders from "rival parties" of orchestrating the allegations. 

He said he received four anonymous letters, handwritten in Kannada, before the election, asking him not to contest and to give up his teaching job at the school. The letter referred to "some videos".  "I took the letters to the Kasaragod Cyber Police, and they found that this woman was behind the letters," he said.

But he also said that he was the one who asked the police to investigate her because he identified one letter as her handwriting. When asked if she could have his private videos, he said that was not possible. No FIR was registered on that complaint. The woman had denied writing the letter. "But after the Cyber Police called her in for questioning, she filed a complaint against me at Kumbla police station, saying I was threatening her. In that complaint, there was no mention of sexual assault," he said. "But 10 days later, she is accusing me of abusing her since 1995."