Thiruvananthapuram: The Cantonment police here on Saturday registered a case against Thiruvananthapuram mayor Arya Rajendran, her husband MLA Sachin Dev and three identifiable persons for allegedly blocking a KSRTC bus in the capital city. Among the five accused in the case, Sachin is named as the first accused while Arya is named as the second accused.
The police registered the case after Thiruvananthapuram additional magistrate court intervened in the case while considering a petition moved by Adv. Baiju Noyal. The lawyer claimed that he approached the court on April 30 as the Cantonment police and City Police Commissioner ignored his complaint. After considering Noyal’s plea, the court on Saturday directed the police to register a case against the mayor-MLA couple and others involved in the incident.
At the same time, it is alleged that police junked the complaint moved by KSRTC driver HL Yadhu against the mayor and MLA for interrupting his duty and disrupting the trip. But the police booked Yadhu over the mayor’s complaint.
On April 27, the mayor and her family got into a heated argument with the KSRTC bus driver after allegedly blocking the vehicle at Palayam junction. The visuals of the mayor and her family questioning the driver of the bus after blocking it with their car at a signal near Palayam also went viral. In her complaint with the police, the mayor accused the driver of making sexually suggestive gestures towards her and her sister-in-law. The driver has denied the allegations and claimed that it was an issue of not giving way to her vehicle.
On May 2, the Kerala State Human Rights Commission also ordered a probe into the driver’s complaint. Acting Chairperson of the Commission and Judicial Member K Baijunath directed the Thiruvananthapuram City Police Commissioner and the Managing Director of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) to conduct an investigation and submit a report within a week.
The complainant driver had alleged that Mayor Rajendran and her family members prevented him from discharging his duty on April 27 by blocking the bus with their private vehicle. He also alleged that the SHO of Cantonment police station took no action when a complaint in this regard was lodged by him.
In his complaint against the mayor, her MLA husband and three others, the driver had alleged that they disrupted the bus journey, shouted obscenities against him and tried to make the passengers deboard the bus. He also sought that the Cantonment SHO be removed from the investigation and the probe be carried out by another agency.
(With PTI inputs)