The special court here, which is conducting the trials on a series of cases charged in connection with the Vithura sex scandal, on Monday acquitted former Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) of Aluva P U Muhammed Basheer from the charges raised by the prosecution.
Special court judge S Shajahan pronounced the first judgment in the cases, after observing that the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence against the accused.
According to the prosecution case, Basheer had sexually molested the victim at the government guest house at Aluva. Though, the victim had given a statement against Basheer, who was the lone accused in this case, she later changed the statement citing that she could not remember the accused.
According to legal experts, the change in the statement of the victim was the turning point in the case. Following this, the court had declared that the victim turned hostile in all the cases. This is the second case being disposed of by the court and Basheer is the second persons to be exonerated in the cases. Actor Jagathi Sreekumar was the other acquitted person in the scandal.
Of the total 23 cases that were charged in connection with the scandal, the court had conducted the trial of as many as 15 cases. A total of seven cases are pending at the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court-II, Ernakulam, for committing the proceedings before sending it to
the special court in Kottayam. The court will pronounce the judgment on T M Sasi, an accused in another case charged in connection with the scandal, on Tuesday.
The case,in which a minor girl from Vithura was allegedly abducted and raped at various places across the state from November 1995 to May 1996, was reported in May 1996.
She was lured by a person named Ajitha Begam, of Kollam, with a job offer and was handed over to Suresh, who is the first accused in all the 23 cases.