Kasaragod: For the second straight day, the Kerala High Court reprimanded Kasaragod Police over the delay in finding the 15-year-old girl, first reported missing on February 12, and found dead after 25 days on March 9, along with her 42-year-old neighbour Pradeep CK.
The division bench of Justices Devan Ramachandran and MB Snehalatha on Tuesday, March 11, asked the investigating officer why he did not invoke the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act after finding on the second day that the girl was missing with a 42-year-old man.
The case was brought before the court through a habeas corpus petition filed by the girl’s mother, Prabhavathi B, on March 6 — 22 days after she reported her daughter, a Class X student, missing at the Kumbla Police Station. The mother alleged the police were not doing enough to find her daughter, a Class X student.
The High Court bench took up the case on March 7 and directed Kumbla police to produce the girl on March 10.
On March 10, the court learned “the shocking turn of events” that the girl and the man were found dead, hanging from a tree, 300m from the girl’s house inside Merkala forest, at Mandekap in Paivalike grama panchayat.
The judges, however, refused to close the writ petition without knowing “what really happened”.
The bench asked the police if they would have lacked the seriousness to search for the girl if she had been the daughter of a VIP and not belonged to a socially and economically backward family. Justices Ramachandran and Snehalatha then directed the investigating officer- Kumbla Station House Officer Inspector Vinod Kumar K P – to appear in person with the case diary on March 11 and warned that if there were lapses in the search for the girl, there would be consequences.
When the officer appeared before the court, the case diary lacked both the autopsy and forensics reports, said Adv P E Sajal, the counsel for Prabhavathi. The bench observed that the police should show urgency in missing cases of children and not treat them as ordinary missing person cases, the advocate said.
Public Prosecutor P M Shameer mentioned in the court that a year ago, a Childline complaint was filed against Pradeep. However, the court did not go into the details and directed the investigating officer, Vinod Kumar, to file a statement on why the POCSO Act was not invoked and explain the delay in finding the bodies.
The case has been posted for further hearing on March 18.