A special court here on Wednesday slammed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for its purported failure to establish the real reason for the suspected poisoning deaths of four members of a family, including two teenage sisters, in Kaviyoor in Pathanamthitta district in 2004.
Judge of the CBI Special Court K. Sanil Kumar ordered the agency to investigate further the murky incident that had generated public concern after the autopsy revealed that the elder sister had been sexually exploited repeatedly.
She was found dead with her father, a temple priest, younger sister and mother at their modest house on September 28, 2004.
Editor’s role
The case took a turn when T. P. Nandakumar, Editor, Crime magazine, entered the trial as a third party.
He alleged in court that the elder girl was the victim of a sex-for-stardom racket. He alleged that Latha Nair, an alleged procuress, had paired of the teenager with the wards of two powerful CPI(M) politicians, promising the victim a leg-up in the Malayalam film industry.
Cover-up allegation
Mr. Nandakumar argued that the deaths could be a cover-up to protect the politicians and their children.
Four back-to-back inquiries by the CBI, including the latest one, found no evidence to support his allegation that roiled Left politics briefly in 2010.
The CBI also flip-flopped on its earlier finding that sexually aberrant behaviour on the part of the father towards his elder daughter had compelled the family to enter into a suicide pact. The court had struck down the controversial finding that caused a public uproar as ‘perfunctory and ineffective.’
Reason for murder
Mr. Sanil Kumar found that the CBI could not pin down the reason for the suspected suicides. It was at a loss to explain who had sexually exploited the teenage girl. Several aspects of the case begged a logical explanation.
The judge felt that a further inquiry would perhaps help the court arrive at the truth.
The CBI had suggested that fear of being named and shamed for their association with Latha Nair, one of the accused in the infamous Kiliroor sex scandal case, might have prompted the family to end their lives.
However, the court found that the inference lacked the strength of evidence.
