According to a report in Mumbai Mirror, the accused, Victor Thomas, had been ‘torturing’ his grand daughter for almost over a year now. 

Further interrogations revealed that the accused has sexually assaulted others too. 

Here are all the facts about the case which had kept the police puzzled for a couple of months: 

On January 15, a 10-year-old girl was found hanging from the window of her mothers’ house in Kundara, along with a suicide note claiming she had been pushed to commit suicide due to family issues. 

The autopsy report of the child revealed that she had been raped and beaten up. There were over 20 injury marks on her body, causing police to start investigating the case as a murder case instead of suicide. 

In March, father of the child went public with the report and claimed that there had previously been alleged instances of sexual abuse towards the child at her mother’s house. He demanded an investigation. 

There were massive protests in Kollam following the postmortem reports, with critics questioning the inefficiency of the police. CPM and its youth faction DYFI also protested outside the Kundara police station and the family of the victim alleged sloppy and insincere police work, New Indian Express reported.

The Kerala government suspended two officers for “lapses” in the probe. According to the police, they had suspected sexual advances by the grandfather, but reconsidered when the mother of the victim refused to cooperate, and also denied charges of sexual abuse, Times of India reported. 

After the autopsy report, which revealed signs of forced sodomy in addition to other injuries, 9 people including the victim’s mother, grandfather, father, some relatives and neighbours were booked. 

According to the TOI report, the victim’s elder sister, who is now 15, had also been raped by her father earlier.

Accused Finally Arrested 

According to reports, Victor, who was arrested by the Special Probe Team (SIT) looking into the case, had been booked for the rape of another minor girl in the area. 

Since the post-mortem report, police have been rigorously interrogating all family members. Though the victims’s mother and sister refused to co-operate, it was the accused’s wife (the victim’s grandmother) who finally admitted to Victor’s crime, and also that the harassment had been going on for over a year. 

Police have admitted to the lax attitude with which the case was initially handled, claiming that though they had initially filed a case of death under unnatural causes, they failed to realise the gravity of the situation, Deccan Chronicle reported. 

Kundara circle inspector R. Shabu and SI Rajeesh Kumar were suspended for dereliction of duty in relation to the case.  

The post-mortem report is dated Jan 16. The police started actively investigating the case only in March after the victim’s father went to the media with the post-mortem report, alleging insincerity. 

Feature Image Source: AFP (Representational Image)