A court in Kerala yesterday recorded the statement of a homemaker who accused a ruling legislator of abusing her as she questioned him assaulting her son.
Sheena, the mother of Ananthakumar, said she had also complained to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his police chief and the state’s human rights and women’s commissions against KB Ganesh Kumar as the police were reluctant to book him for insulting the modesty of women.
She accused Kumar, 52, of attacking her son, an engineering graduate, who was at the wheel while the family were going to attend a relative’s home in Anchal in Kollam district for a delay in making way for him.
Eyewitnesses also said the two-time minister and film actor who had earlier faced similar charges of road rage, was abusing her as she questioned why he was assaulting her son for no fault of him.
The complainant said though they had immediately filed a police complaint accusing him of insulting the modesty of a woman, a crime that could land him in jail for three years, they registered no case even after four days since the attack on Wednesday.
Both the chief minister and Kumar, a four-time legislature of the one-member Kerala Congress (B) headed by his father R Balakrishna Pillai, refused to respond to the allegations.
“It’s natural to face such allegations when you are in politics,” Kumar said.
Vijayan just ignored the questions fielded by the journalists and went away after responding to another query.
The police, who had registered a case against Kumar on her son’s complaint, booked her son under even harsher provisions of the law on Kumar’s counter- complaint hours later.
“He beat up my son before my eyes which a mother couldn’t withstand. My son didn’t utter a word. It’s I who questioned it,” Sheena told a television channel the other day.
“I asked him ‘sir if you could move your vehicle a bit on the reverse, we both could have passed easily.”
Soon, he came out with a vulgar gesture and shouting abuses.
“He took my son out of the vehicle and started assaulting him. Soon his driver also joined him in the attack.
“Before leaving, he said, ‘you go and file a case, nothing is going to happen. We are ruling here. Let’s see what’s going to happen’. I had to witness my son getting beaten up before me.
“When people started gathering, an officer came and made way for him. Now I’m convinced that he is ruling the country and we ordinary citizens will not get justice.”
After giving her statement to the magistrate court in Chavara, which lasted for around 90 minutes, she said she stood by her earlier statement.
“I have said everything in the court. I hope we’ll get justice,” she told the waiting journalists.
Kumar had to resign as a minister in 2013 in the previous Congress-led government after his wife came out with allegations of domestic violence against him.
The KC (B) later joined the opposition and won the subsequent election.
Eyewitnesses said Ananthakumar had to take his car into another house to let the legislator pass the narrow road.
Kumar went inside the compound and assaulted him.
“I heard the women questioning him why he was beating her son in before her,” Baby, who was present there, said
Kumar ... ruling class
