The Kerala Police on Saturday arrested Congress MlA M Vincent on the charge of rape based on a complaint from a 51-year-old woman in his neighbourhood who attempted suicide in Balaramapuram near Thiruvananthapuram four days ago allegedly following continuous harassment from him.
Before recording his arrest late Saturday afternoon, the police had interrogated Vincent, a first-time legislator representing Kovalam constituency in Thiruvananthapuram, for nearly three hours at his room in the MlA Hostel. He was arrested immediately after a court posted his application for anticipatory bail to Monday.
The First Class Judicial Magistrate Court in Neyyattinkara, Thiruvananthapuram where Vincent was produced on Saturday evening remanded him in judicial custody for 14 days. He would be lodged at the sub-jail in Neyyattinkara.
Tension prevailed near the court when Vincent was brought there with Youth Congress activists raising stiff protests against the police who were forced to resort to lathi-charge. Congress activists raised intense protests against arrest at the police station in Neyyattinkara as well.
Vincent claimed that he was a victim of political score-settling and the police had arrested him under pressure exerted by the office of Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The State Congress leadership said the party MlA’s arrest was politically motivated and indicated that the party would not ask Vincent to resign until he was found guilty by the Judiciary.
Vincent, against whom a case was registered on Wednesday for abetting suicide after the woman tried to take on life, was on Friday slapped with the fresh charges of rape and stalking on the basis of the complaint lodged by the woman.
Sources said that during questioning, Vincent had tried to defend himself by claiming that the woman had psychological problems and had been taking medicines for depression and by producing phone call records to show that she had called him several times. However, Vincent’s arguments collapsed after the police produced evidences against him, they said.
According to the woman, the MlA had sexually abused her several times and stalked her for over a year and half with intimidating phone calls and threats. He had also been making obscene comments to her over the phone, she said.
“I decided to commit suicide because I could not cheat my husband. This MlA… He assaulted me twice at my home and once in my shop. He persecuted me for one-and-a-half years. I have told the magistrate and the police about this and I stand by what I have told them,” the woman told the media on Saturday.
A police official said that there were no contradictions in the statements the woman had given to them and the magistrate who had met her at the District Hospital in Neyyattinkara, Thiruvananthapuram where she was admitted after her suicide bid.
The police have received records proving that the MlA had talked with the woman for nearly 900 times in five months. They have learned that he had tried to settle the matter through discussions with her brother.
There were circumstantial and scientific evidences as well as convincing witness statements against the MlA, said an official.
The State Congress leadership has taken a position that Vincent need not resign as MlA just because he had been arrested. Despite the demand raised by top woman Congress leaders for Vincent’s resignation, PCC president MM Hassan indicated that the party would take action against him only after the Judiciary pronounced him guilty.
Vincent’s arrest came less than four months after NCP’s AK Saseendran resigned as Transports minister after a TV channel aired voice-recordings of a conversation between him and a young woman in which he had made obscene remarks to her. It was soon revealed that Saseendran had actually been trapped in a honey-trap sting operation by the TV channel itself.