KOCHI: Probing the rape and death of two minor girls in Walayar, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has revealed that the demise of a couple of accused persons and a suspect during the investigation has no reasonable connection to the siblings’ death and occurred due to unrelated reasons.
The victims’ parents, who approached the Kerala HC seeking to quash the chargesheet against them, said no investigation was conducted into the suspicious deaths of the accused — Pradeep and Madhu alias Kutti Madhu — and the suspect, John Praveen.
Opposing the petition, the CBI filed an affidavit which also stated that there was no evidence supporting the deposition of the deceased younger child, who had claimed to have seen two persons leaving the house on January 7, 2017, six days before the death of her elder sister.
Accusing the parents, the CBI stated that although the police, which initially investigated the case, attempted to collect evidence from the younger child through counselling, the children’s mother did not allow the police to examine her.
The mother also refused permission to the counsellor of GVHS, Kanjikode, where the elder child studied, to take evidence in this regard. “Being the eve of the Pongal festival, most of the women in the area were in the front yards of their houses, cleaning and decorating them. None of them witnessed any masked persons,” the CBI said.
Regarding the deaths of the accused persons in the Walayar case, the CBI stated that Pradeep was hanged to death in Cherthala on November 4, 2020, and a case has been filed by the Cherthala police.
The police seized a mobile phone from the scene. During the further investigation by the CBI, the mobile phone was sent to CFSL, Hyderabad, for forensic retrieval of the photos and videos of the children, if any, recorded on the device. But the phone could not be opened at CFSL and was hence forwarded to NFSU, Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
The data extracted from Pradeep’s phone confirmed the presence of obscene photos and videos. Analysis of the extracted datasets determined that child pornographic content (images/videos) was present in the mobile phone.
It was revealed that the mother, who is now arraigned as an accused for abetting the rape of the children, used to watch obscene videos on Pradeep’s phone and used the elder child as the carrier of the device. Some of the classmates of child also deposed that she used to watch sexual content on the mobile phone, the CBI said.
During the further investigation, witnesses’ statements revealed that John Praveen was a regular visitor to the victim’s house during the period. John was called by the state police for examination on April 25, 2017, but he did not appear before the investigators and was found hanging from a tree in Attappallam. Walayar police concluded that it was a case of suicide.
The CBI then filed an application before the Special Court to forward the suicide note of the deceased to CFSL for the retrieval of the obliterated writings. But the plea was dismissed by the court, stating: “If no useful purpose will be served by examination of the note recovered from the scene, then it need not be sent for forensic examination.”
Another accused, Madhu alias Kutty Madhu, was found dead in an old factory building at Binanipuram, near Aluva, on October 25, 2023. Binanipuram police registered a case, and a chargesheet was filed against Niyas for committing the offence under section 342 (wrongful confinement), 306 (abetment of suicide), and sections under the SC/ST Act. The mobile phone recovered from the scene has been sent to FSL, Thiruvananthapuram, for forensic retrieval, which is awaited, the CBI said.