KOCHI: In a major twist to the 2017 sensational case that rocked Kerala, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in the supplementary charge sheet, has arraigned the parents in the rape and death of two sisters, aged 9 and 13, at Walayar, Palakkad.
As many as six charge sheets were filed before the Ernakulam CBI court in Kochi in the Walayar case, as it is known.
According to sources, in all six charge sheets, parents of victims were arraigned as accused of abetting rape and not reporting the rape incident to the police. They were charged with offences under IPC and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The CBI investigation found that parents deliberately concealed the facts that their daughters were raped by the accused persons. Similarly, the investigation agency also found that accused persons abeted the rape. Earlier, CBI filed six charge sheets related to the rape and suicide deaths of two sisters. The accused in the cases are Valiya Madhu, Shibu, Pradeep and Kutti Madhu for the death of the elder girl. Similarly, Valiya Madhu and a minor boy were accused of abetting the murder of the younger girl.
Kutty Madhu was later found dead in a closed private factory in Binanipuram near Aluva in October 2013. Another accused, Pradeep was found hanging in his Cherthala residence on November 4, 2020. While Valiya Madhu and Cheriya Madhu were close relatives of the young girls, Shibu, a resident of Rajakkad in Idukki, had been living with the family for several years and frequently engaged in masonry work with them.
The incident took place in 2017 when the two young siblings were found dead within two months in Walayar. The siblings were found hanging in the same fashion in a shed near their house. Walayar police had concluded that the girls were sexually abused for nearly a year until they were forced to end their lives.
The Kerala High Court directed the case to be handed over to the CBI in March 2019 after ordering re-trials in the cases. The cases which were first considered by the Palakkad POSCO court were transferred to the CBI Court in Kochi last year. This the second CBI team of the Thiruvananthapuram Special Crime Unit conducting the investigation in the case. Earlier, the court had rejected the charge sheet filed by a CBI team in 2021.