KOCHI: A day after the Kochi City police arrested Martin Joseph, who is accused of raping and torturing a 27-year-old fashion designer after detaining her in a luxury flat in the city for nearly a month, City Police Commissioner C Nagaraju on Friday admitted that there were lapses on the police’s part in investigating the sensational case promptly.
He said the police became serious only after the news hit the headlines. “Although we started an investigation into the case, we admit that we didn’t give much attention to it earlier. Only limited resources were used to find the accused. But we came to understand the seriousness of the issue when the news regarding the case hit the headlines,” Nagaraju said at a press conference.
He said a department-level inquiry will be carried out to find out the causes of delay in launching the investigation. “Despite the grave charges in the complaint, there were some lapses on the part of the officers in informing the top officers. A team headed by ACP K P Philip will head the department-level inquiry. This is to prevent recurrence of such incidents in the future,” said the commissioner.
He also added that all legal procedures have been initiated. “ There were no procedural lapses in the case. We were able to cancel the bail when Martin approached the district court,” commissioner added. The police have drawn flak for their failure to arrest the prime accused in the case though the victim had filed the complaint on April 8. The case suddenly came under the spotlight when photographs of the woman from Kannur with bruises all over her body surfaced on social media.
Despite it being a heinous crime, the police had sat on the complaint for almost two months. The delay was attributed to the election duty and lockdown, following a spike in Covid cases in the city.