Don't give ice cream parlour case report to VS, says Kerala govt

Kerala government on Friday moved the High Court against a lower court order that the re-investigation report of the sensational ice cream parlour sex scandal case may be given to Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan.

The government argues that it cannot accept the order of the Kozhikode principal magistrate court as Achuthanandan is neither a complainant nor a witness in the case.

The special team set up for the re-investigation of the case following the allegation that IUML leader and Industries Minister P.K. Kunhalikutty had sabotaged the case has reported to the court that it could find no evidence which corroborate the allegation.

The case was re-opened following disclosure of K A Rauf, a close relative of Kunhalikutty, that at the instance of Kunhalikutty, he bribed the officer who had investigated the case earlier and the girls were silenced by giving hefty amount and smuggling some of them to the Gulf.  The case pertains to allegations that an ice cream parlour at Kozhikode beach was used as a cover for running a sex racket in the late 1990s. 

Though he never became an accused in the case, Kunhalikutty had come under a cloud in the wake of the scandal and even quit the ministry then. Rauf’s disclosure came at the fag-end of the previous LDF government and then Chief Minister Achuthanandan order the re-probe of the case.

Achuthanandan has been fighting at various courts since the case surfaced for implicating Kunhalikutty in the case.