After eight days of investigations, the Special Team of the Kerala Police probing the brutal rape and murder of a 29-year-old Dalit law student inside her house in Perumbavoor near Kochi on April 28 on Friday seemed to be in confusion about the number of culprits behind the crime even as Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the Centre was prepared to launch a CBI investigation into the incident.
“As the country’s Home Minister, I assure you that the Centre is prepared to conduct a CBI probe into this incident as soon as we get a recommendation from the State Government,” Singh said at a BJP election rally at Chathannur in Kollam district. “The guilty shall be punished,” he said, adding “our sisters and mothers are not safe in Kerala.”
At the same time, the Kerala High Court on Friday refused to intervene in the investigation into the Dalit student’s rape-murder at this juncture. While taking up a PIl praying for orders for a CBI probe, the court adopted this position after the Director General of Prosecutions submitted before it that the current investigation was progressing on the right path and that the Government was ready to give the court a report on the probe.
The Special Police Team investigating the rape-murder seemed to be confused about whether the crime was committed by a single person or whether there were more than one accused behind it. While Additional Director General of Police K Padmakumar, who opined that the crime was pre-planned, favoured the theory that there was only one accused, some officials refused to agree with it totally.
“As per the information received so far, the possibility is that there was only one accused,” Padmakumar told the media. “But the investigations are progressing and the details cannot be divulged at this stage… The incident seems to have been committed with the clear plan,” the ADGP said.
The police now think that the crime could have been committed by someone who was close to the law student and her family. Sources said the statements received by them from people in the locality suggested this possibility. They said that this was only one theory but “we consider all information seriously”.
The police had carried out extensive inspections at the camps of migrant workers in Perumbavoor. Reports said the searches were carried out with the cooperation of officials from the police’s Narcotic Cell. They had carried out searches in migrant workers’ camps in the area on Thursday also.
At the same time, some officials claimed that the investigators had received “several clues” that could shed light on the rape-murder. The police have come to the conclusion that the crime could have take place at about 6.00 pm on April 28, on the basis of the statements given by three persons living in the locality.