Jesna missing case: Kerala court directs CBI to continue its investigation

Issuing the order, the court handed over the evidence submitted by James to the CBI.

Also Read: Jesna could be alive, CBI report says while dispelling ‘love jihad’ narrative

The case

Jesna Maria James, a 20-year-old second-year BCom student, left her home at Mukkoottuthara in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district around 9 am on 22 March, 2018. Little did her parents, Fancy and James Joseph, then know that it would be the beginning of a prolonged search for the youngest of their three children.

The student of St Dominic’s College in Kanjirappally was supposed to visit her aunt at Punchavayal in Mundakayam, hardly 20 km from her home. She took an autorickshaw and later a local bus to Erumely, before boarding another bus to Mundakayam.

And then, the bespectacled young woman vanished into the blue.

Five years later, the CBI ended its probe to find Jesna, citing lack of any substantial evidence in the case. The premier probe agency however, ruled out the possibility of the young woman converting to another religion, a narrative that was peddled by vested political interests.

She had not committed suicide either, the CBI said in its 52-page closure report submitted to the Chief Judicial Magistrate court.

The CBI had taken up the probe based on a high court directive issued on 19 February, 2021.

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Who wants ‘love jihad’?

Vested interests raised the so-called ‘love jihad’ bogey even as Jesna’s relatives and collegemates staged a sit-in, demanding the authorities find the young woman. Despite the Union government and the Supreme Court ruling out any instance of ‘love jihad’ in Kerala, a major section of the powerful Catholic Church refused to agree.

Instead, it shared the Sangh Parivar’s theory of Islamic terrorists faking love to lure young women of other faiths and issued frequent edicts to keep teenage Christian girls out of harm’s way.

Jesna is frequently mentioned in many of the pastoral letters issued on behalf of senior Catholic bishops in Kerala.

Multiple investigations could not track Jesna’s presence anywhere beyond Erumeli, though the probe took investigators to various states. The CBI, through Interpol, issued a yellow alert in 191 countries to find the young woman in April 2022. The yellow notice is a global alert for a missing person.

Throughout these years, Catholic bishops have been steadfastly maintaining that Jesna was a victim of ‘love jihad’.

BJP state president K Surendran found an opportunity in her disappearance to reach out to the Catholic Christians, saying Jesna’s case was a classic example of ‘love jihadis’ targeting young Christian girls.

Right-wing Hindutva propaganda went a step further, saying Jesna was spotted in Syria with two children, and she and her husband were furthering the cause of the Islamic State.

The CBI’s closure report however, categorically ruled out the ‘love jihad’ angle. For Fancy and James, their daughter is still missing — but alive.

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The CBI report

The CBI report exposed vested interests stoking Islamophobia to create divisions and unrest in society.

It stated that religious conversion and extremism were not the driving forces behind her disappearance. The CBI informed the court that it had investigated all centres of religious conversions across the country, as well as offices of so-called extremist Islamic organisations before concluding that they had no role in Jesna’s disappearance.

The agency even checked with Kozhikode-based Arya Samaj, which converts non-Hindus to the Hindu community. The report also said there was no concrete evidence to establish that she had been murdered or committed suicide.

It suggested she could still be alive.

CBI sleuths investigated several so-called suicide points across the country. It also went through the national registry of unnatural deaths over the past five years and conducted searches based on it across Kerala, Chennai, and Mumbai.

Expert divers were roped in to search the Lower Periyar dam in the Idukki district following a suspicion that her body could have been dumped there. Brain-mapping tests conducted on Jesna’s father and her friend did not find anything suspicious.

The CBI further said Jesna’s circle of friends was limited, and she was always confined to her private world. She was never active on social media and had not taken her keypad-based mobile phone while leaving home.