Injured Kerala teacher’s kin complain of tardy probe

By IANS,

Thiruvananthapuram : The wife of a school teacher found with brutally inflicted wounds and abandoned on a highway near Kottarakara Sep 27 has complained to the police of tardiness in investigation.


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K.R. Geetha, wife of school teacher Krishna Kumar, approached Director General of Police Jacob Punnoose Saturday to complain that the ongoing police inquiry was not being done in a proper way and wondered why no arrest has been made.

The complaint was handed over to Punnoose by Geetha’s brother Ajith Prasad.

It said that close to two weeks after the incident, the police have failed to determine what precisely happened. “We have no other go but express our disappointment with the manner in which the inquiry is being conducted,” Prasad said.

Kumar was found severely injured near Kottarakara, some 30 km from here, around 10.45 p.m. Sept 27. Highway police first took him to a local hospital but he was later moved to the Medical College Hospital here as his condition was serious.

Charging the police with inaction, Prasad regretted the campaign to “malign” the injured and his family. “It is rather strange that the statements of the victim are being leaked to the media,” said Prasad. “Our next step is to seek legal redress.”

The first theory circulated was that Kumar’s rectum was pierced with an iron rod, his genitals crushed and his hips smashed.

However, a medical board report concluded Friday that Kumar’s injuries might have been caused due to a vehicle accident and that his rectum was not pierced by a rod, nor were his genitals crushed.

“We are all deeply hurt by what is being circulated in the media and we request the police to see that such malicious campaign be stopped,” says Geetha’s complaint.

Soon after the episode, the first salvo was fired by Leader of Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan of te Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), who alleged that the attack was masterminded by jailed ruling United Democratic Front leader and former minister R. Balakrishna Pillai and his minister-son K.B. Ganesh Kumar.

One reason why Achuthanandan levelled these charges is that the school where Kumar and Geetha work belongs to Pillai and the teacher couple and Pillai are having a long running feud, souces said.

TV channels had a field day. A series of stories followed and the state assembly was rocked, with the opposition alleging that Pillai was running the government from jail, using a mobile phone and that Pillai even talked to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.

But Chandy gave evidence that the call to his private secretary was made at a time when he was on tour and challenged the opposition to prove that he spoke to Pillai.

Chandy soon launched an inquiry and after it was found that Pillai used a mobile phone in jail, his term in jail was extended by four days.

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