The accused's family claimed the first attack was by the victim girl's father and grandfather when Palraj was returning from his tailor shop.
Published Jan 08, 2024 | 12:16 PM ⚊ Updated Jan 08, 2024 | 12:16 PM
Acquitted man attacks victims kin. (iStock)
The Kerala police have booked the relative of a man acquitted in the Vandiperiyar rape-and-murder case, for attempting to kill two members of the victim’s family, according to an FIR registered in connection with the incident.
Vandiperiyar police booked Babu alias Palraj (46), a close relative of Arjun, who was acquitted by a local court in the rape-cum-murder case, for offences under section 307 (attempted murder), 324 (causing hurt with a dangerous weapon) and 294(b) (uttering obscene words in public) under the IPC.
Palraj was arrested on Saturday, 6 January, police said.
Meanwhile, BJP state President K Surendran alleged that the incident indicated a failure of the law and order system in the state as the police were not able to protect the minor girl’s family.
He also claimed, while speaking to reporters in Thiruvananthapuram, that the rate of crimes against women and children in the state is one of the highest in the country.
The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) held a protest on Sunday, 7 January, at Vandiperiyar expressing solidarity with the victim’s family.
KPCC workers and activists held a protest march, which also included children wearing black clothes and holding up black balloons.
They also carried a banner and placards stating “stree jwala” against denial of justice.
Besides the protest march, Congress leaders — including AICC general secretary KC Venugopal and Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan — also accused the ruling Left government in the state of protecting the accused in the rape-cum-murder case.
Speaking at the place where the march ended, Venugopal, addressing the gathering of party workers, said the government acted as a “godfather” of the accused in the case instead of ensuring the maximum punishment for him.
Satheesan too levelled similar allegations and said that it was the CPI(M) that protected the accused in the rape-cum-murder case, and also Palraj.
On the other hand, the family of the accused claimed that Palraj was acting in self-defence.
His son claimed before the media that Palraj was first attacked by the victim girl’s father and grandfather when he was returning from his tailor shop.
“What do you do when someone attacks you? You defend yourself. That is what my father did,” the young man claimed.
He also claimed that the day after the verdict acquitting Arjun, a group of people came in two jeeps to their residence and threatened and abused them.
However, according to the FIR in the attempted murder case, the accused attacked the father of the minor victim in the rape-cum-murder case with a sharp weapon, intending to kill him.
The FIR also stated that when the minor girl’s grandfather tried to intervene, he was also stabbed in the shoulder by the accused.
According to the police, the accused used obscene words against the minor girl’s family to cause them emotional distress.
The incident occurred on Saturday morning at a place near Vandiperiyar town.
The father and grandfather of the minor girl are undergoing treatment at Kottayam Medical College.
A POCSO court on 14 December, 2023, acquitted Arjun (24) in the case, saying the “prosecution failed to establish all the circumstances which are consistent with the guilt of the accused and inconsistent with his innocence”.
Subsequently, the Kerala High Court had on 4 January admitted the state government’s appeal against the acquittal in the case.
The six-year-old girl was found hanging inside her house on June 30, 2021, when her parents went out for work in a nearby plantation.
Police had initially registered a case of unnatural death, but the autopsy report confirmed that the child was raped before she was hanged.
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