In the fourth major incident of abominable sexual abuse of minor girls to come to light in Kerala in less than ten days, a 53-year-old construction worker has been arrested at Binanipuram near Aluva, about 18 km north of Kochi, for sexually assaulting to minor girls, who are sisters aged three and seven.
According to the police, the girls had been subjected to sexual assault by Unni
Thomas, their neighbour at Karothukunnu near Binanipuram, for quite some time. He was arrested on Tuesday following information from the District Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Ernakulam district. The accused had reportedly admitted that he had abused the minor girls.
The incident is said to have taken place in December. The two girls used to go to Thomas’s house for playing when he was alone there after his wife went out for work and he had used the occasion for committing the crime, it is said. Thomas had reportedly threatened to kill the girls if they informed their parents about the matter.
According to the police, a woman in the neighbourhood had alerted the girls’ parents about the incident but the issue was buried after they and Thomas reportedly reached a settlement. However, the incident came to light after a teacher at their school questioned one of the girls after she spotted her restlessness.
Meanwhile, the incidents of brutal rape of seven minor girls at an orphanage at Muttil, Kalpetta in Wayanad district and the death of two minor Dalit sisters at Attappallam near Walayar in Palakkad district within a span of 50 days caused noisy scenes in the State Assembly on Wednesday as Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan seemed unable to provide a clear explanation.
Amidst discussions on a notice moved by Congress legislator K Muraleedharan for an adjournment motion on the matter, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said that the fact that the rape of seven girls for several weeks in two shops on a busy roadside in Wayanad during daytime had gone unnoticed showed the inefficiency of the police under the leftist rule.
There were serious lapses on the part of the police over the incidents in Wayanad and Walayar, Chennithala said. Alleging that the accused were getting political protection, he said, “The Chief Minister, who is also holding the Home portfolio, is standing as a mere spectator when small girls are being tormented by rapists.”
At the same time, protests raged in Walayar against the callous way in which the police had approached the death of the two minor girls and who had allegedly been subjected to sexual assault. The police were accused of deliberately disregarding findings mentioned in the inquest and postmortem reports about possible sexual assault.