In a development that has already set off political tremors in Kerala, the police on Sunday registered a case under non-bailable charges against the lDF MlA, former minister Jose Thettayil of the Janata Dal (S), and his son on a complaint — supported by webcam-grabbed video evidence —lodged by a woman that they had sexually abused her.
The development pushed the CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF into a crisis as it came just when the front was preparing for a final showdown in the Assembly on Monday against the Congress-led UDF Government over the alleged links of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s office with con-woman Saritha S Nair and her partner Biju Radhakrishnan in the infamous solar power scam.
Sources said that Thettayil, one of the four MlAs of the JD(S), might resign on Sunday night itself or on Monday. A special team of the Kerala Police’s Crime Branch has already started the probe on the charges against Thettayil and his son Adarsh. The complaint against Thettayil, MlA from Angamaly in Ernakulam district, was lodged on Sunday afternoon.
Sensing the urgency of the situation, the lDF decided to hold an emergency leadership meeting on Monday morning even as the State JD(S) leadership was awaiting instructions from the national leadership over the question of Thettayil’s resignation.
This is the first time video evidence for sexual abuse charges was being presented against an MlA in Kerala.
Rejecting the allegation of the woman, an MCA degree-holder, Thettayil said the development should be seen in the context of the crisis the UDF was facing over the solar power scam and that the woman could have morphed the video. But she said the MlA could prove his arguments in the court. Thettayil said he had known the woman and her family for several years.
According to the complainant, hailing from Manjapra in Thettayil’s Angamaly constituency, his son Adarsh had abused her sexually several times in the past two years by pretending to love her.
He abandoned her later, she said, adding that Thettayil also abused her – at her flat in Aluva near Kochi – after she approached him to complain about his son’s act of betrayal.
The complainant said that she had a close relationship with the Thettayil family since 2007.
He had told her that he wanted his son Adarsh, then doing his MBA course in Ireland, to marry her, she said in the complaint to the police. However, Thettayil denied this by saying that it was she who had approached him in November last with the desire to marry Adarsh.
The woman had lodged a complaint with the police earlier but this was not considered properly.
This gave rise to allegations to the effect that the ruling UDF could have played a role in the re-surfacing of the complaint on Sunday in context of the solar power scam over which the opposition was planning to unleash a decisive attack against it in the Assembly on Monday.