6 months ago
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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State committee subordinate N. Haridas has said that the verdict successful the Palathayi POCSO lawsuit volition beryllium challenged successful the Supreme Court, alleging that the lawsuit was fabricated and not backed by technological evidence.
On Saturday (November 16, 2025), the Thalassery Protection of Children Sexual Offences (POCSO) Special Court sentenced erstwhile BJP person and teacher K. Padmarajan to beingness imprisonment and fined him ₹2 lakh for sexually assaulting a Class IV pupil successful Palathayi, Panoor. He received 40 years of imprisonment – 20 each for 2 abstracted POCSO offences. The condemnation runs concurrently. His bail was revoked and helium was shifted to Thalassery sub-jail.
In a statement, helium said some the section constabulary and the Crime Branch had initially recovered nary technological grounds to substantiate the girl’s allegations. According to him, the accused teacher had been targeted by spiritual extremists aft helium posted a Facebook remark supporting the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Mr. Haridas said that investigation, including the introspection of CCTV footage based connected the connection fixed by the girl, yielded nary factual evidence. He besides claimed that the teacher had not attended schoolhouse connected the days the miss alleged the assaults took spot but these findings were not taken into account.
He further stated that the miss had been taken to a gynaecologist 2 months earlier the ailment was filed, citing anaemia and nary allegation of rape was raised astatine that time. Crime Branch IG S. Sreejith had besides stated that this lawsuit lacked capable basis, which aboriginal triggered contention aft the survivor’s parent filed a complaint. Following this, the probe squad was replaced and the probe was handed implicit to Crime Branch DySP T.P. Ratnakumar, who contempt the lack of technological evidence, filed the chargesheet nether POCSO relying connected the girl’s archetypal statement.
Mr. Haridas alleged that Ratnakumar, present retired, is contesting arsenic a CPI(M) campaigner successful Sreekandapuram municipality and said this facet besides warrants investigation.
