Kerala: Police says Mishel took her life; 1 held

Kochi/ Thiruvananthapuram: Amid mounting protests demanding a fair probe into the death of CA student Mishel Shaji Varghese, the cops on Monday maintained that it was a case of ‘ suicide’ while lodging a case for abetment to suicide against her distant relative who admitted to have been in a relationship with her for nearly two years. The Ernakulam Central Police recorded the arrest of Cronin Alexander Baby (26) late on Monday after a day-long interrogation. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has ordered a Crime Branch probe into the death of the 18-year-old who was found dead in mysterious circumstances in Kochi on March 6.

ADGP Nitin Agarwal will supervise the investigation and Crime Branch DySP Sasidharan will head the probe. The Chief Minister, however, contradicted the claim of the girl’s parents saying that a missing complaint was filed only on March 6 and not on the previous day when Mishel was found missing.   Mr Vijayan also said that he had no official information about CCTV images of two men seemingly following the girl after she had come out of a church.   “The police report that I have been given says that a complaint was filed only on March 6. It does not mention that parents and relatives had lodged a complaint on March 5,” he said, while replying to an adjournment motion moved in the Assembly on Monday.

While moving the motion, Anoop Jacob of Kerala Congress (Jacob) alleged that the police of Central Police station in Kochi had asked the parents to return the next day when they reached the station to lodge a missing complaint at 9 p.m. on March 5, the day Mishel went missing. The CM said the Crime Branch probe would also look into the charge that the police had concealed information about the attempt by the parents of the girl to file a missing complaint on March 5 itself. Mr Anoop Jacob was highly critical of the police handling of the case. He said the policemen on duty asked the parents to return the next day when the SI would be present.

“Even the FIR is silent on the attempt made by the parents and relatives of the girl to file a missing case on the night of March 5,” Mr Jacob said. Mishel’s body was found drowned near the Ernakulam wharf on March 6 evening. “If the police had acted on the complaint by the parents on March 5, they perhaps could have saved the girl,” Mr Jacob said. “Crucial hours were wasted by their sheer callousness,” he said. Although the post-mortem report was ready by March 8, Mr Jacob said that the police secured possession of it only on March 12. “Fishermen at the wharf had said it did not look like the body had been in the water for a day as it was not decayed. This further heightens suspicion that she might have been dumped in the water after being killed,” Mr Jacob said.