One witness makes torture claim, another turns hostile

Thiruvananthapuram: Scrap dealer Shameer M M, the 26th witness in the Sister Abhaya murder case, told the CBI special court on Wednesday that he and his brother Riyas were brutally tortured by the crime branch team to elicit evidence and statement against ‘Adakka’ Raju, the prime witness in the case.
Raju had already testified about seeing Fr Thomas Kottoor and another man in the compound of St Pius X convent hours before Sister Abhaya’s body was found from the well of the convent.
Another witness Nisha Rani, who was a resident of Pius X convent at the time of the incident, retracted from her statement given to CBI probe team that had indicated insinuations at the character of Sister Sephy, prompting the prosecution to appeal the court to declare that the witness had turned hostile.
During the witness examination, Shameer said Raju had sold the copper coil stolen from Pius X convent in his scrap shop but he hadn’t known that Raju was selling stolen good. He said he knew about Raju’s antecedents only when crime branch sleuths reached his shop and picked him up. Shameer said crime branch officials, led by CI IC Thampan, brutally tortured him for two days till they found out the whereabouts of Raju. “My brother Riyas was kept in custody for six days and brutally assaulted as the police wanted him to make a statement that Raju had killed Abhaya,” Shameer said.
During the witness examination by CBI counsel advocate Navas, Shameer said crime branch had framed Raju in 28 cases based on the statement and material evidence recovered from his shop. He said he and his grandfather were asked by crime branch sleuths to buy new copper coils and water metre and give them to Raju when he was freed. The police then arrested Raju and marked the material recovered as stolen goods. “I have testified as witness in the court in three of those cases,” Shameer said.
Fr Thomas Kottoor’s counsel B Raman Pillai, who cross examined the witness, alleged that Shameer’s family had been in scrap business for three generations and he and his predecessors had connived with robbers to purchase and sell stolen goods. The allegation was denied by Shameer. J Jose, counsel of third accused Sister Sephy, alleged that Shameer had neither met Raju nor had purchased goods from him and the entire story was cooked up by CBI and parroted by Shameer.