The former public prosecutor who represented the government in the sensational Walayar case involving the death of two minor sisters said here on Tuesday that the case had been too weak for any prosecution to get a conviction for the accused.
“The case had only circumstantial evidence, and no scientific evidence. Even if the case is reinvestigated, only the circumstantial evidence can be presented before the court. The police failed miserably in building a strong case by collecting pieces of evidence,” said Jalaja Madhavan, who had been public prosecutor for three months in the Walayar case.
Ms. Madhavan lashed out at Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for blaming the prosecution for the acquittal of the accused in the case. The Chief Minister had held the prosecution responsible for the failure of the case.
“The police built the case so weakly that no prosecution will be able to bring the culprits to book,” she said. “The Chief Minister should explain how the prosecution failed.”
Ms. Madhavan said she had pointed out to investigating officer M.J. Sojan (DySP) about the misreckoning of including ‘suicide’ in the first information report (FIR) in spite of having plenty of circumstantial evidence to make it a murder. The postmortem examination report too had mentioned that murder could not be ruled out.
“I told DySP Sojan about it, but he never cooperated,” she said. According to her, the former chairman of the Child Welfare Committee too refused to intervene for the victims. She demanded an investigation into their roles.
She said the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government replaced her with Lata Jayaraj, who had been appointed by the United Democratic Front (UDF) government. “I am a Left sympathiser. Still I don’t know why I was replaced by a UDF nominee. The Home Department should explain the reason for it,” she said.
