No leads yet in Kerala rape case

Govt says probe on course; online campaigns gain momentum

Six days after the rape and murder of a 30-year-old Dailt law graduate in Perumbavoor near Kochi, the investigating team is still groping in the dark.

A police team led by Ernakulam range IG Mahipal Yadav continued interrogating a man detained from Kannur in connection with the killing of Jisha on Tuesday but the police have not established his links with the murder.

Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala maintained that the probe was on course even as more protests were staged in Perumbavoor and Thiruvananthapuram against the brutal killing. The police incorporated a charge of rape in an additional report submitted to a local magistrate court. Television channels quoted from the post-mortem report – handed over by a medical team in the Alappuzha Medical College to police – that there were 38 injuries on Jisha’s body. Yadav and other senior police officials have stated that there could be “only one accused” in the case. The police said the accused had tried to strangulate Jisha and injured her chest and other parts of her body. The brutal assault also left her intestines spilled out of her body, reports said.

On Wednesday, protests and online campaigns in connection with the case continued. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who visited Jisha’s mother Rajeswary at the Perumbavoor Taluk Hospital, was intercepted by protesting activists of the CPM-affiliated Democratic Youth Federation of India. Leader of the Opposition V S Achuthanandan and other CPM leaders and the BJP questioned the effectiveness of the police in tracking down the culprit. National Commission for Women member Rekha Sharma arrived in Kochi on Wednesday evening in connection with the case.

Issue rocks Parliament

The “dastardly” rape-cum-murder of a Dalit student in Kerala rocked Parliament on Wednesday, with several MPs demanding “exemplary punishment” for the culprits.

Both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha saw members vociferously raising concern over the incident that took place in Ernakulam district on April 28. Sketch of murder suspect released

The police on Wednesday released sketch of a person believed to have committed the rape and murder of a Dalit woman in nearby Perumbavoor, PTI reports from Kochi.

The investigation team questioned her neighbour, who was taken into custody from Kannur on Tuesday evening.