A special court in Kottayam on Monday acquitted former Deputy Superintendent of Police TU Muhammad Basheer, one of the several accused in Kerala’s infamous Vithura sex scandal which was similar in many ways to the Suryanelli serial rape case in which Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien was accused of involvement.
Special Court Judge S Shajahan acquitted Basheer, who was accused of raping the victim, then a 16-year-old girl, at his official residential quarters at Aluva near Kochi in 1995, primarily because the victim had failed to identify him and also because of the inability of the Prosecution to produce any evidence against him.
The victim, now 34, had in the initial stage of the trial identified Basheer and other accused but she changed her statement in the later stage, saying that she could not remember the faces of any of her tormentors as the brutality against her had taken place 18 years back. The only evidence against Basheer was the statement of the investigating officer.
A total of 23 cases had been registered in connection with the Vithura sex scandal which pertained to the brutal ordeal for the poor girl hailing from Vithura, a village in Thiruvananthapuram district. She was raped by several men between October, 1995 and May, 1996 after one Suresh took her to several places promising her a job.
Sixteen cases were being tried in the Special Court in Kottayam while seven were with a court in Ernakulam. The Kottayam court had exonerated accused Jagathi Sreekumar, Malayalam film star, in one of the 16 cases back in 2007. The court would pronounce its judgement in the second of the remaining 15 cases on Tuesday.
legal experts said that the Vithura serial rape case would remain as an example of how slow the Indian judicial system was in taking cases of crimes against women to closure. The case pertaining to the Suryanelli serial rape in 1996 of a 16-year-old girl is still going through various courts in Kerala. The Special Court in Kottayam had earlier criticised the victim for not appearing for trial. "That is the irony in this case. How can the victim be blamed for that when she was in no way responsible for the case not reaching its conclusion even after 18 long yearsIJ" asked a senior lawyer of the Kerala HC.