KOLLAM:Victor Daniel, accused of sexually assaulting his 10-year-old granddaughter at Kundara, was presented before the Kollam District and Sessions Court on Monday.
The court sent Victor to judicial custody for 14 days.Police officers said they would move the court to grant them custody. The Special Investigation Team had said the accused had sexually abused another minor in the locality too. Kollam SP S Surendran has ordered a probe into this incident. Kottarakkara DySP B Krishnakumar will investigate the case.
When Victor was brought to the house for evidence collection, irate locals thronged the area baying for his blood. The accused is said to have told police he had raped his granddaughter in the upper storey of his house.
“We have started reinvestigating the case in which the victim’s father was arrested for sexually abusing her elder sister in 2015,” Krishnakumar said.
The DySP said a decision on putting the mother and the accused to a lie-detector test would be taken after discussions with higher officers and legal experts. Preliminary probe has revealed the accused and the complainant in the case (the father) were co-accused in an attempt-to-murder case and have other cases to their name.A member of the SIT told Express counsellors from the District Child Welfare Committee had played a big role in the cracking of the case.
‘My daughter was murdered’
The father of the child told reporters on Monday his daughter’s death was a murder. Saying the accused had called him to his house on the day the girl committed suicide, the father alleged the accused was trying to frame him for the death of the girl. “Victor and his daughter had filed a complaint against me of molesting my elder daughter. Had the authorities taken the initiative of counselling her (elder daughter), my younger daughter could have been saved,” he said. The father also expressed a suspicion the victim was coerced by the accused to write the suicide note.