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Top politicians left out of Kozhikode sex scandal indictment

D Jose in Trivandrum

Several top politicians have managed to keep their names out of the chargesheet filed by the Kerala police in the sensational Kozhikode sex racket.

The indictment filed by Kozhikode (north) Assistant Police Commissioner A V George before the judicial magistrate, first class, on Thursday contains the names of just a couple of lightweight politicians and some other less influential persons.

The politicians figuring in the chargesheet are two former mayors of Kozhikode, T P Dassan and O Rajagopal, both belonging to the Communist Party of India, a constituent of Kerala's ruling Left Democratic Front.

Daasan and Rajagopal were suspended from the CPI soon after their names began to be mentioned in connection with the case.

Women's organisations in the state have expressed anger over the conspicuous exclusion of several top politicians, including former industries minister and Indian Union Muslim League leader P K Kunhalikutty from the chargesheet which was filed after the case was kept in cold storage for several months.

The first accused as per the chargesheet is Sreedevi, a 38-year-old woman. She has been charged under sections 366, 109,and 120B of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act with having enticed five girls working in her ice-cream parlour in Kozhikode to enter into the flesh trade at various well-known hotels.

The others indicted are C P Abdulla (48), Kaderkutty (44), P A Rahiman (50), M K Abdul Khader (49), Kalarikkal Basheer (43), James Joseph (35), K T Joseph (38), Baby Joseph (47) C M Kutty (63), Aravindakshan (38), Baijunath Katippali (36), K Rafi (39), and N Vijayan (37).

The police have produced a list of 61 prosecution witnesses.

But K Ajitha of Anweshi, the organisation that exposed the scandal, has expressed dismay at the failure of the police to charge Kunhalikutty. She said his name figured in the original police investigation but was dropped at the behest of the LDF for political reasons.

Ajitha, who is now leading a vehicle jatha (procession) from Kanhingad to Trivandrum in support of her demand to book all the culprits, said the government, by its inaction, is giving the green signal to the sex mafia, currently controlled by a politician-bureaucrat-businessman nexus.

She scoffed that the development politicians promise seems to be the development of the sex industry, adding that it will be Kerala's biggest industry in the next decade.

The former Naxalite said the tendency in the state now is to punish the victims, with police protection getting transformed into incarceration for them while the culprits walk free.

Stree Vedi, a conglomeration of some 40 women's organisations, had organised a campaign for the arrest of all the politicians involved in the racket. The present vehicle jatha is part of the campaign, which included a march to the state assembly on June 29, a relay satyagraha before the secretariat from July 13 to August 6, a march to the chief minister's house on August 4, and blockade of all MLAs on March 5.

The jatha is slated to end on Thursday, December 17.

Meanwhile, sources do not rule out the possibility of the Muslim League politician being named in the case subsequently. A chargesheet has already been filed against him in another case. This is seen as a sign of the Communists falling out with Kunhalikutty following the decision of the Calcutta congress of the CPI-Marxist, the dominant partner in the LDF, to have no truck with the IUML and other communal parties.

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