By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram

The Kerala High Court yesterday dismissed an appeal by the victim of the 1996 Suryanelli rape case to reopen the probe against Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman P J Kurien.
The woman, who insists Kurien had raped her in a guesthouse in the tourist town of Kumily 17 years ago, approached the high court after the lower courts repeatedly rejected her demand.
Her appeal came after the sole convict in the case, S S Dharmarajan, told a Malayalam television channel that he had taken Kurien in his car to the guesthouse where he allegedly raped the then 16-year-old girl.
The high court said that the claims of the convict, who had since backtracked on them, could not be trusted.
The court also observed that Kurien was being haunted by the case even after the Supreme Court had conclusively exonerated him.
The District Sessions Court in Thodupuzha, Idukki, had in July said there was nothing new in the petition seeking further investigation in the case and all aspects had been looked into earlier, which the high court upheld.
Kurien hailed the verdict as “triumph of truth,” while the father of the victim said it was once again proven that it was impossible for his daughter to get justice.
The sex scandal took place at Suryanelli in Idukki district in January 1996, when the then schoolgirl was allegedly threatened, abducted and abused by a bus conductor and was later confined and sexually assaulted for more than a month by 42 men at several places in Kerala and the neighbouring states.
Kurien’s name never appeared in the list of the accused. The trial court found more than 42 people guilty and they were later acquitted by the high court except Dharmarajan.
Dharmarajan had filed an affidavit in the lower court retracting the claim he made from his hideout in Karnataka before his rearrest.
In his affidavit he said he had seen the senior Congress Party leader only on television and he made the claim as he was misled by people who interviewed him that he can escape prosecution by dragging Kurien’s name into it.
The criminal revision petition was filed in the District Court after a lower court rejected the victim’s petition to order the police for a fresh probe.
Dharmarajan had told the television channel that he had personally taken Kurian to the girl on February 19, 1996. He was on the run after jumping bail and was arrested by the police after his “revelations” in February this year.