Family members of the Malayalam actress who was kidnapped are under tremendous pressure from some quarters, a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from Kerala claimed yesterday.
Speaking to reporters here, BJP’s Kerala unit president V Muraleedharan said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan knows precisely the “hands” behind the incident. Muraleedharan said he met the actress and her family.
He said there existed ‘some mystery’ in Vijayan’s statements claiming that the heinous crime was the handiwork of prime accused Pulsar Suni and five others.
“Vijayan was in a hurry to announce that the crime was solely the work of the prime accused. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) backed Kairali TV channel aired a news item portraying the victim in poor light and you should remember that the chief of the channel, John Britas, is also the media advisor to Vijayan,” Muraleedharan pointed out.
“The Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes is now trying to play down the issue,” the BJP leader said.
“It was a leading film personality (Bhagyalekshmi) who on Saturday revealed that the actress’ mother is unhappy with the way the case was progressing but soon after her brother denied it,” Muraleedharan said.
“On Saturday the actress was supposed to meet the media but she was asked by police not to speak to the press. We demand that either a central agency or a court-monitored probe take place for the truth to prevail,” he added.
With Vijayan announcing that Pulsar Suni was behind the actress’s abduction, the police will not be able to proceed ahead with a probe into the case, Muraleedharan contended.
On Saturday, the BJP and Congress strongly condemned Vijayan’s controversial statement, which later led to the chief minister retracting it.
“I made the statement based on a newspaper report I read while taking part in a meeting. The report mentioned the prime accused as being behind the crime and that there was no conspiracy. I said the media should find out the conspiracy and police are currently doing their job,” Vijayan told reporters here yesterday.
Kerala Congress president V M Sudheeran said Vijayan was being evasive and “this can be made out from his weak defence after his Saturday’s statement turned out to be controversial”.
Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said while Vijayan claims there was no conspiracy, the state police say otherwise.
“The need of the hour is a court-monitored probe,” he said. The police have arrested all the six persons associated with the actress’ abduction and assault in Kochi in a moving car on February 17.
u201cI made the statement based on a newspaper report I read while taking part in a meetingu201d
