KANNUR: In one of Kerala’s most disturbing child abuse cases, the Palathayi POCSO case has reached a decisive moment after the Thalassery Fast-Track POCSO Court found former BJP leader and schoolteacher K. Padmarajan guilty in the sensational Panoor Palathayi child rape case.
The court confirmed that the charges of sexual assault and rape against him had been proven beyond reasonable doubt. The quantum of sentence will be announced on Saturday.
The case, involving the alleged sexual assault of a 10-year-old schoolgirl by her own teacher, BJP leader and former Thrippangottur panchayat committee president K.K. Padmarajan, has gripped the state for over four years with its shocking twists, political undercurrents, and repeated derailments of the investigation.
What began as a routine complaint on 16 March 2020 soon exploded into one of the most controversial crimes in Kannur’s recent history.
The complaint, filed with the Thalassery DySP, alleged that Padmarajan, also a district leader of the Sangh-affiliated teachers’ organisation NTU, had sexually assaulted the child multiple times—both in the school toilet and at a house where the girl had been taken. Initially, local police astonishingly concluded that the complaint appeared “fabricated,” leading to widespread protests when action against the accused stalled.
Amid mounting public outrage, POCSO charges were finally invoked. Padmarajan, who had gone into hiding, was arrested on 15 April 2020 from a relative’s house.
From the outset, the case turned into a political battleground. The BJP repeatedly claimed the complaint was part of an SDPI conspiracy aimed at tarnishing its local leadership. Meanwhile, the child’s family accused successive investigation teams of sabotage and deliberate mishandling.
What followed were a series of troubling investigative lapses. The Crime Branch, after taking over the case, showed inexplicable delay in filing the chargesheet, submitting it just hours before the mandatory 90-day deadline. Shockingly, the Crime Branch omitted POCSO charges entirely, limiting the case to sections of the IPC and the Juvenile Justice Act. This omission directly helped Padmarajan secure bail from the Thalassery Additional District Court.
The girl’s mother subsequently moved the High Court, triggering yet another transfer of the probe. When the case was handed to Narcotic Cell ASP Reshma Ramesh, the prosecution later told the court that even this investigation veered in the wrong direction. The court intervened once again, appointing DIG S. Sreejith. However, his tenure too became controversial after an audio clip surfaced in which he reportedly said the accused appeared “innocent”. Sreejith did not deny the authenticity of the tape, further eroding public trust in the probe.
This scandal led to the fifth and final reshuffle, with ADGP E.J. Jayarajan and former Taliparamba DySP T.K. Ratnakumar taking over the investigation.
In a rare investigative breakthrough, the new team found blood traces from the school restroom, one of the locations where part of the assault allegedly occurred. Their final report reinstated the POCSO charges—Sections 5 and 6—dealing with aggravated penetrative sexual assault.
Alongside the original allegations that he repeatedly abused and threatened the child, the charges also included Section 376 of the IPC.
Among the most chilling aspects of the case was the child’s testimony describing repeated assault, intimidation, and coercion—acts allegedly committed by someone entrusted with her safety as a teacher.
Opposition parties, including the Congress and IUML, accused the government and police of deliberately weakening the case to protect a politically connected accused. The botched investigations and missing chargesheet elements fuelled widespread suspicion of political interference.
Presiding judge M.T. Jalaja pronounced the verdict coincidentally on Children’s Day, adding emotional weight to a case centred around the betrayal and violation of a child.
According to legal experts, the Palathayi case remains one of the most politically charged and chilling sexual abuse cases in Kerala—not only because of the brutality of the allegations but also due to the repeated collapse of institutional safeguards meant to protect a child victim.