The victim of the infamous Suryanelli serial rape scandal of 1996 will approach the Kerala High Court seeking direction for a follow-up probe into Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien’s alleged involvement in it in the context of the disclosures that had recently come up against him, especially from prime accused Dharmarajan.
The decision to move the High Court was taken in the context of the firm refusal by the Congress-led UDF Government in Kerala to order a probe against Kurien on the pretext that the Supreme Court had discharged him from the case as back as in November, 2007 after three police investigations had failed to find any evidence for his involvement.
The serial rape victim, who had suffered brutal sexual assault by 42 men between January 16 and February 26, 1996, will file her petition seeking follow-up probe within a couple of days. She would present in the court the video of the recent interview Dharmarajan had given to a TV channel in which he had “revealed” that Kurien was involved in the scandal.
In response to her query on January 29 on the possibility of reopening the case against Kurien, senior lawyers had advised the victim that she could approach the court in the light of the new revelations. The victim has consistently accused Kurien of raping her after she identified him from his picture that appeared in a newspaper in March, 1996.
The disclosures by some others also could be of immense help to her case, according to legal experts. A BJP leader and an elderly woman had some days ago given statements that could disprove the alibi the police had used to establish that Kurien could not have met the girl at the particular time on the day she had mentioned.
legal experts are of the opinion that these factors, the change that has occurred in the general perception on atrocities towards girls and women after the Delhi gang rape-murder and the annulment by the Supreme Court on January 31 of the 2005 Kerala High Court verdict acquitting 35 accused in the Suryanelli rape case could become favourable to the victim in the court.
Dharmarajan, the only one to be convicted among the 42 men who had raped her when she was just 16 years old, had told the TV channel that he himself had taken Kurien in his Ambassador car on February 19, 1996 to the Rest House in Kumili where the girl was being held captive and that the Congress leader had spent half an hour with her.
Dharmarajan, a lawyer by profession, had gone into hiding in October, 2005 after he was released from the prison, where he was serving a five-year term since January that year. He had given the interview from his hideout in Mysore on February 11 and a special team of the Kerala Police arrested him from near Shimoga in Karnataka on February 15.
Among the other factors that could work out in the victim’s favour in the court is the recent statement by BJP leader KS Rajan that he had met Kurien at the house of one Idikkula in Thiruvalla in Pathanamthitta district at 5.00 pm on February 19, 1996 and not at 7.00 pm as the police had written in their report.
Also, Annamma, widow of Idikkula, had said that Kurien was at her house on that particular day but he had left by 5.00 pm and not by 7.30-8.00 pm as the police had mentioned in their report. Then DySP KK Joshua, a member of the police team which probed the rape scandal, had recently indicated that his superior Sibi Mathews did not want to make Kurien an accused.
