Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala on Saturday demanded stringent action against the police officers responsible for the shoddy investigation into the death of two Dalit sisters, both minors, at Walayar in Palakkad district in 2017.
In a letter to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Mr. Chennithala said the law enforcement had come under withering criticism from across the political spectrum after a special court for the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) acquitted three persons accused of having sexually exploited the children and abetted their suicide.
The court had cited failure on the part of the prosecution and want of evidence as grounds for the acquittal. The wilful indifference on the part of the police to the plight of the indigent Dalit family had driven the parents of the girls to the street to seek justice for their wards, Mr. Chennithala said.
The parents were on an indefinite protest in front of the Secretariat. Mr. Chennithala visited them and expressed solidarity with their struggle.
The CPI had criticised the police for their “lack of empathy.” Janayugam, the party run newspaper, had penned a scathing editorial damning the police failure to bring the abusers to book.
The Bharathiya Janata Party (BJP) had championed the cause of the Dalit family. BJP activists had staged a march to the district police headquarters in Palakkad. BJP State president K. Surendran had alleged that the police had developed cold feet in the case because the main accused were local apparatchiks of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)].
The parents had also made a similar allegation. They had even doubted whether the girls, who were 10 and 12 at the time of their unnatural death, could have committed suicide. They had said they suspected that the accused could have murdered the children to evade prosecution.
Mr. Chennithala said the lawyer who defended the accused in the case was also a local CPI(M) man who officiated as the chairperson of the District Child Welfare Committee. He said it pointed to collusion and potential conflict of interest.
The UDF and the BJP demanded a CBI inquiry into the case. Director-General of Prosecution Manjeri Sreedharan Nair has reportedly given a similar opinion after he found flaws on the part of the prosecution.