Kerala sisters who commit suicide within a span of 52 days were sexually abused

Thrissur: The siblings who committed suicide at Attapalam in Walayar within a span of 52 days were sexually assaulted as per the post-mortem report, according to Thrissur Range IG M.R. Ajith Kumar.

The girl was found hanging inside her one-room house at Attapalam on January 12 and Sharanya, 9, at 6.30 pm on March 4. The IG visited the house of the siblings along with ASP G. Poonguzhali, who is supervising the investigation into the case. The local police had been saying that there was nothing suspicious in the post-mortem and the chemical test reports of the girl.

Their mother Bhagyavathi told mediapersons that a close relative of her had been sexually abusing Hrithika and that she had warned him several times on the matter.

“I don’t believe that my children had committed suicide. I had told the police that Sharanya had seen two persons coming out of our house by covering their face a few minutes before Hrithika was found hanging inside the house on January 12,” she said.

The investigation team  on Tuesday took into custody the close relative of the girls and two of his friends, who allegedly sexually assaulted Hrithika.

The Walayar police and the Child Welfare Committee in Palakkad are receiving flak for allegedly taking the suicide case of the elder of the two sisters who was found hanging at her one-room house at Attapalam near Walayar in January, lightly.

Along with police and CWC, the Child Protection Council under the district collector and the officials of the Social Justice Department of the government did not bother to verify the details of the circumstances that led to her death on January 12, DC has learnt.

“All the officials concerned took the issue lightly and that led to the death of Hrithika’s younger sister Sharanya on Saturday. If the first incident had been seriously investigated, the death of the younger sister could have been prevented,” M. Balamurali, panchayat member of Pudussery Panchayat which includes Attapalam told DC.

He said that most of the youth in the area where the house of the siblings were located were addicted to alcohol and ganja.

“I have come to know that the three persons who were taken into police custody on Wednesday where frequent visitors to the one-room house of the siblings where the consumed alcohol along with the parents of the girls.  The elder one was born out of her mother’s relationship with another man and the younger one along with a boy who is staying in the house are children of the couple,” he said.

The social and the domestic circumstance of the children had led them into being sexually exploited, he said.