Kerala: POCSO grave only under 2 Sections

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state police has revised the list of grave crimes by limiting only a couple of sections of the POCSO Act as grave crimes  and enhancing the quantum of loss in offences like robbery, cheating and ATM frauds to get tagged as grave crimes. Also, sub-inspectors (SIs) who are holding charge of station house officers (SHOs) have been empowered to probe grave offences   to address the confusions following the partial implementation of the decision to make circle inspectors (CIs) SHOs of all police stations. The investigations should be supervised by DySPs on a daily basis, according to fresh norms regarding grave crimes issued by state police chief Loknath Behera on June 12.

So far,  all grave offences were supposed to be probed by an officer in the rank of CIs or above. The government decided to make CIs as station house officers in a phased manner. In the first phase,  it was implemented at 196 of the 464 police stations from January 1. Subsequently,  268 police stations continue to have SIs as SHO and ceased to have direct supervision of circle-inspector. As a result, the  probe into grave crimes reported at the stations headed by SIs were suffering. Hence,  SIs holding the charge of SHOs are now empowered  to investigate grave crimes.

DC had earlier reported that the  Kovalam police station that mishandled the Latvian tourist’s  case, Varappuzha police station that witnessed the Sreejith custodial death and Gandhi Nagar police that allegedly mishandled the Kevin missing petition were also headed by sub-inspectors as SHOs. A major change in the fresh categorisation of the grave crimes is that only offences under sections 3 and 5 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, which deals with penetrative sexual assaults, would be hereafter considered as grave. Earlier all cases under POCSO Act were classified as grave crimes.

Another change is that earlier trafficking of persons under IPC 370 was classified as grave crime, whereas only trafficking of minors under IPC 370-A have been made a grave crime in the revised classification. According to the fresh classification, ATM thefts above Rs 2 lakh only would be considered as grave. Earlier,  the limit was Rs 1 lakh. The grave crime limit of cheating cases has  been increased to Rs 1  crore from Rs 50 lakh. In the case of thefts and house-breaking, the value of loss to become grave crime should be Rs 50 lakh. Earlier,  it was Rs 10 lakh. In the case of ordinary thefts, the value was increased to Rs 75 lakh from Rs 20 lakh.