Palakkad; POCSO court in Palakkad ruled in favour of reinvestigation into Walayar case where two minor girls who were victims of sexual assaults died under suspicious circumstances in a gap of . In the hearing, Justice S Muralikrishna acknowledged plea for a reinvestigation submitted by a special investigation team set up by state government based on High Court verdict.
Following acquittal of all suspects in the case, the state government and victims’ mother had appealed the High Court and obtained ruling that overturned the lower court verdict. All those acquitted were re-arrested and the state government set up a special investigation team to look up the case once again.
The custody period pertaining to two accused V Madhu(30) and Idukki Rajakode native Shibu(46) have been extended. Pampapallam Kallankode native M Madu alias Kutty Madhu(27) currently has High Court bail in the case. Palakkd Crime branch SP . S. Raju had submitted the reinvestigation plea with Palakkad court on the 20th. POCSO Court Special Prosecutor ,P. Subramanian, appeared for the police.
The case
Two dalit sisters aged 13 and 9 were found hanging inside their home in a gap of 52 days in 2017. Postmortem indicated both girls were sexually abused when alive. The girls had been lived with their mother and stepfather. The older girl was reportedly founding hanging without any furniture under to access the height she hanged from, while legs of the younger girl, according to her mother, had been touching the ground when found hanging. The suspects in the case were frequent visitors to the house - Valiya Madhu, Cheriya Mdhu, Shibu and Pradeep. The case caught national headlines and there was big outcry over shoddy investigation. When the case went on trial all the accused were acquitted for lack of concrete evidence. Pradeep, the accused who was also the victims' neighbour, had hanged himself in Nov 2020, shortly after police made preparations to re-open the case.
