KOLLAM: Controversial police officer N Abdul Rasheed, an accused in the case of attempted murder of journalist V B Unnithan and was once arrested by the CBI in connection with the case, is back in the district. He has been posted as the new ACP of District Crime Records Bureau (DCRB).
It was in the new list of transfers released by the Home Department on Saturday that he was shifted from Thiruvananthapuram City DCRB to Kollam City DCRB.
Abdul Rasheed, who had once served with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Kosovo, became a controversial officer after reports started appearing citing his his alleged links with goons in the district. The events relating to the case started unfolding in December 2010, when V B Unnithan of ‘Mathrubhumi’ daily reported that Abdul Rasheed, then a DySP, had pulled the emergency chain of Rajdhani Express to alight at Kollam, where the train didn’t have a stop then.
The report also mentioned that at the time of the incident, he was accompanied by DySP S Santhosh Nair, another controversial officer, and S Santhosh Kumar alias Container Santhosh, a goon. Later, on April 16, 2011, Unnithan was brutally attacked at Kollam while returning from work.
It was in April 2012 that Abdul Rasheed was suspended by the then State Police Chief Jacob Punnoose based on the order from the then Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan. Rasheed had also faced an internal inquiry on the charges of physically assaulting a senior official at Police Headquarters.
Meanwhile, Unnithan said that the appointment of Abdul Rasheed in a key post might affect the ongoing investigation as he could influence the eyewitness accounts or could tamper with the evidence.