KOCHI: The police investigation into a complaint by a family that their two daughters aged 19 and 17 had gone missing from Kochi has unravelled a sordid family tale. The two had, in fact, been raped by their brothers since 2018.
While the two elder brothers aged 22 and 20 were arrested on the basis of the elder girl’s statement, their parents have come out saying that their sons have been put behind bars on false charges and alleged that the police have demanded Rs 5 lakh in bribe to release them.
The parents, who belong to Delhi, lodged a complaint on August 31 saying their two daughters had disappeared from their house on SRM Road. The North police registered a case and the search led them to Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh where the two girls were found with two UP men in a lodge room. The police said the girls were befriended by one of the two UP youth during their train journey to Delhi. As they arrived in Delhi, he offered the girls help and made arrangements for their stay with the help of his friend. The police learnt from the elder girl that he had raped her in the lodge.
While recording her statement, she told the police that she left the house along with her sister actually because their brothers had been abusing them sexually. After returning to Kochi with the girls and the UP youth, the police summoned the brothers, including the youngest who is a class 8 student. During interrogation, all three brothers confessed that they had sexually abused both sisters. Since they were minors when the abuse started in 2018, the two elder brothers were booked under Pocso Act and arrested, while the youngest one was booked under the Juvenile Justice Act.
The police said in the first case, only one of the two UP men was arrested as he had raped the elder girl. He is now under judicial custody.City Police Commissioner C H Nagaraju ordered a comprehensive inquiry into the whole issue.
“The circumstances under which the family alleged that the police had demanded money are unknown. All accused have been arrested and remanded. There is no new accused to be added. We registered the second case after a lot of deliberations. We were shocked. It is a highly sensitive issue because a minor girl is abused, a juvenile accused is involved and it has happened within a family,” the commissioner said.
The police registered the Pocso case after recording the elder girl’s statement before a magistrate under Section 164 of CrPC. Meanwhile, her father told a TV channel in Kochi that his sons were falsely implicated in the case by the police.
HC initiates suo motu case into alleged police harassment of New Delhi family
Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Wednesday initiated suo motu proceedings into the alleged police harassment of New Delhi native family settled in Kochi.
Based on a news report which stated that the family with five kids was allegedly subjected to police harassment following the arrest of their two sons charges under the Pocso Act, the court directed the Kochi city police commissioner to file a report in a sealed cover after making all necessary inquiries.
Justice Devan Ramachandran said a comprehensive report has to be obtained from the Commissioner of Police, Kochi, under whose jurisdiction the police station referred in the report is functioning.