The Kerala Police on Saturday arrested two senior students of a Muslim body-managed school at Parakkadavu, Nadapuram in Kozhikode district for sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl, an lKG student of the same school, on October 30. A decision on arresting a third senior student, who had been taken into custody, would be taken after further inquiries, the police said.
The arrested students, undergoing a Muslim religious course by staying at the hostel of an orphanage adjoining the school, belonged to Eranholy and Parode in Thalassery, Kannur district. The police had taken all the three students into custody earlier this week.
The arrest of the two students was recorded mainly on the basis of the statement of the victim. The girl, who had stood by her version in the statement she gave to a local magistrate as per Section 164 of the CrPC, had also identified the culprits in an identification parade. The police said that the culprits were arrested on the basis of scientific investigation.
The senior students had abused the girl after taking her forcibly to the room of the school’s cooks from near the toilets during lunch break.The incident took place on October 30 but the parents had come to know of it only when they took the girl to a doctor after she developed physical problems eight days later.
Though the girl had been repeatedly telling the police that she was abused by three senior students (“elder brothers” as she referred to them) whom she could identify, they had on Friday taken into custody Muneer, the cleaner of the school bus in an alleged bid to derail the case under pressure from certain influential people who wanted to protect the actual culprits.
The police, who took Muneer into custody on Friday morning, had also “weaved” a story of how he had sexually assaulted the girl. According to them, Muneer had approached two lKG students near the toilet and offered them sweets. One of the girls went back to the class. He took the other girl, who asked for more sweets, to the cooks’ room and assaulted her, according to the police.
However, the police were forced to release Muneer on Friday evening following intense protests from the girl’s relatives, local people and several organizations. They alleged that the police were trying to slap the charge on Muneer in order to derail the case for protecting the senior students who were the actual culprits.
Muneer told the media on Saturday that the police had used third degree methods on him to force him to make a false confession that he himself had raped the girl. He said two policemen of the Nadapuram station had tortured him severely after gagging him and tying his hands. “They even threatened to beat me up by hanging me head down from a pulley,” he said.
Though the doctor who examined the girl had lodged a complaint with the police station at Valayam near Nadapuram on November 7 itself, there had been no prompt action. Then the parents complained to the school authorities which also fell on deaf ears. The police sprang to action only after the people resorted to intense protests at the police station and the school.
Meanwhile, the school management said on Friday that the arrested students were not the actual culprits. The arrest of two students who were undergoing a course in religious studies was part of a conspiracy to malign the institution’s reputation, they complained. They called for a fresh probe by a different investigating agency in the case.