Rajesh M. Menon, the special public prosecutor who secured conviction for the accused in the sensational Attappady Madhu lynching case from the SC-ST special court in Mannarkkad, has been chosen as CBI special public prosecutor in the Walayar case.
The mother of the two minor victims of the sensational Walayar case had demanded the appointment of Mr. Menon as special public prosecutor for the Central Bureau of Investigation. The Central agency is currently reinvestigating the Walayar case, in which the two sisters were found hanging in their house at Attappallam, near Walayar, on different dates in 2017.
While the 13-year-old sister was found dead on January 7, 2017, her nine-year-old sibling was found dead in the same fashion on March 4, 2017. It was alleged that the girls had been raped and murdered. But the prosecution failed to prove the allegations, letting the accused walk away scot-free from the POCSO court here.
Although the postmortem reports had indicated that both the children had been sexually abused before their death, the chargesheet filed by the police on June 22, 2019, said that the girls had committed suicide.
The POCSO special court here exonerated all the accused in October 2019, sparking a nationwide uproar against the prosecution’s failure in proving the crime with scientific evidence. The victims’ mother approached the High Court demanding abrogation of the judgment and a re-investigation in the case in November 2019.
The P.K. Haneefa Judicial Commission appointed by the State government found in March 2020 that the police and the prosecution had committed grave mistakes in the case.
On November 4, 2020, third accused Pradeep Kumar committed suicide at Cherthala. In January 2021, the High Court repealed the POCSO trial court’s verdict exonerating all the accused, and the case was soon handed over to the CBI.
After their re-investigation, the CBI submitted its chargesheet before the POCSO court on December 27, 2021, endorsing the police claim that the girls had committed suicide. However, the court rejected the chargesheet on August 10, 2022, and ordered a detailed re-investigation by another CBI team. The court had criticised the CBI for giving “old wine in new bottle”.
