The Additional District and Sessions Court here that looks into POCSO cases has come down heavily on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) while rejecting the latter’s charge sheet in the Walayar minor sisters’ death case.
Describing the CBI chargesheet as a ‘carbon copy’ of the police investigation, the court had said it was ‘old wine in new bottle’. The court ordered a re-investigation by the CBI. It was on August 10 that the court here rejected the CBI chargesheet, and directed the agency to re-investigate the case. The court found that the CBI had done a slipshod investigation in spite of the case having garnered much attention.
‘Weak, full of lacunae’
The court blamed the CBI for failing to produce pieces of circumstantial evidence strong enough to secure conviction for the accused. The court observed that the CBI chargesheet was weak and full of lacunae.
The court observed that people would lose their faith in the judicial system if the investigating agency comes up with such a slipshod inquiry. The court ordered the re-investigation following a plea by the victims’ mother against the CBI findings. The girls’ mother had requested the court to annul the CBI chargesheet and contended that her daughters had been murdered.
Like the police investigation, the CBI also had submitted that the minor girls committed suicide because of persistent physical abuse and torture. However, the mother stood her ground saying that her children had been murdered. The two sisters, aged 13 and nine, were found hanging in their house at Attappallam, near Walayar, on different dates in 2017. When the 13-year-old girl was found hanging on January 13, 2017, her nine-year-old sister was found dead in the same manner on March 4, 2017.
Post-mortem reports
The post-mortem reports indicated that both girls had been victims of sexual abuse. The police investigation found that the siblings had ended their lives. The case, in which rape and murder were alleged, sparked an outrage and invited national attention when the POCSO court here exonerated all the accused for want of evidence in October 2019.
The victims’ mother, with the support of an action forum formed by Dalit and human rights activists, first approached the government seeking a re-investigation, and later the High Court demanding an inquiry by the CBI. Pradeep Kumar M., one of the five accused in the case, committed suicide on November 4, 2020. He was found hanging in his house at Cherthala. The CBI took over the case following an order by the High Court in March 2021.
The CBI chargesheet said that Madhu Sr., Shibu and Madhu were responsible for the death of the 13-year-old girl. The chargesheet further said that Madhu Sr. and a boy were responsible for the death of the nine-year-old girl. The CBI team led by Dy.SP Anantha Krishnan had rejected the murder claim on the basis of lack of scientific evidence. The CBI reached the conclusion after experimenting with several theories, including the dummy experiment. The Walayar Action Council has demanded that a CBI team from outside Kerala should reinvestigate the case.
