BANGALORE (INDIA)
TheNewsMinute
November 21, 2020
By Sreedevi Jayarajan
The incident is said to have taken place in Kilimanoor back in 2018.
The Kerala police on Thursday arrested a man who allegedly disguised himself as a temple priest and sexually abused an 11-year-old girl in Thiruvananthapuram. The incident is said to have taken place in Kilimanoor back in 2018. The accused, 37-year-old Shyam is a native of Allapad panchayat in Kollam district. According to the police, the girl’s mother had knowledge of the abuse.
Speaking to TNM, officers at the Kilimanoor police station said that the accused had been working in a local temple in the area, under his fake name – Shan. He reportedly got acquainted with a woman in the neighbourhood and visited her regularly. The woman is the 11-year-old girl’s mother. “The accused and the mother also threatened the girl to not reveal the abuse to anybody. This is how reporting of the incident got delayed by two years,” an officer at the Kilimanoor Police Station told TNM.
The accused was finally arrested when the minor revealed the abuse to her father and the two filed a complaint in the station. The arrest was recorded on Thursday after he was charged under relevant sections of the POCSO Act (Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences). The accused has been remanded to judicial custody.
Reports also add that the accused had been duping people for years by working in Kerala temples under a fake name. He had also created fake identity cards and documents to make it more convincing. He also made fake documents in the name of a famous Namboothiri family in Edakulangara, according to reports. Several documents and multiple mobile SIM cards were seized from the accused. He was arrested by a team of officers from the Kilimanoor police station headed by Station House Officer (SHO) KB Manoj Kumar. He has remanded by the Attingal POCSO court.
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