Parents of the two minor sisters in Walayar of Kerala’s Palakkad, who were allegedly raped and murdered three years ago, will hold a protest in Ernakulam on Sunday, September 13. In a video, the parents say tearfully that they have been denied justice all this while and would hold a satyagraha on the day their elder daughter would have turned 14 had she been alive.
“It has been three years since our daughters were killed. We haven’t still got justice. Instead of punishing the police officials who tried to sabotage the case, they were promoted by the government,” the mother says in a broken voice.
Her husband recalls that she was six months pregnant with the first child when they got married. When she delivered a baby girl, it was he that received the child in his hands. “That child, the second daughter after her, and our third child, a son – they are all my children,” he says.
It was on January 13, 2017 that their elder daughter was found dead in their house in Walayar. Less than two months later - on March 4 - the younger girl, who had testified seeing her sister's killers - was also found dead. The older girl was 11, the other nine.
“All our efforts so far to bring justice to our daughters had been in vain. So we are coming out to sit in strike at the Gandhi statue in Kacheripady, Ernakulam on September 13,” the mother says.
More than a month ago, the bereaved mother said in an interview to The Cue that policemen had followed her when she recently travelled to Ernakulam. She said that the police who had not earlier shown any interest in the case were suddenly keen to know about her activities. They questioned her intention of visiting Ernakulam, she alleged.
In June, she had written a letter to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan expressing her disappointment at the government's decision to promote MJ Sojan from Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) to Superintendent. He had investigated the case in which four of the five accused were acquitted by the Palakkad sessions court.
Last year, the mother had given a petition at the High Court challenging the Palakkad court's verdict. Before that, she had met the CM with her husband to ask for a CBI inquiry into the case. Pinarayi Vijayan had then promised all support for the family's petition for a retrial. He announced in the Assembly that the government would be one of the parties asking for reinvestigation.
In April, the PK Haneefa Judicial Commission appointed by the government reported that there were lapses during the trial of the case.
A month before that, the Kerala High Court had ordered the arrest of the four accused persons in the case, earlier acquitted by a trial court. The order came in response to a plea filed by the Kerala government and the mother of the girls, against the acquittal. Three of the accused were re-arrested and presented before the POCSO court after which they were released on bail. The fourth was missing.
The outbreak of COVID-19 was cited as a reason for the delay that came afterward but the promotion of Sojan during this time had hurt the family.
Following inaction, several protests were held by the Justice for Walayar Kids, a forum formed by activists to support the parents. Outside the Secretariat they camped for many days, demanding the punishment of (then) DySP Sojan, who had allegedly made the case weak. It went on for several days till in February, the police had given notice to remove the awnings.