Police Arrest 57 Men; Hunt On for Two Abroad in Kerala Minor Dalit Athlete Rape Case

Agencies, January 23, 2025 : The Kerala Police arrested a total of 57 men accused of raping a minor Dalit athlete over 5 years in Pathanamthitta district. However, two more people are yet to be arrested. An FIR was registered in the case on January 10 after the heinous crime came to light.

Since January 10, the Special Investigation Team has arrested 57 out of the 59 accused, except for two who are abroad, according to the police.

Five minors were among those arrested.

It is alleged that when the Dalit athlete was 13 years old, Subin, one of the accused, had sent obscene messages and pictures to her through his mobile phone. He is also accused of procuring obscene pictures and videos of the teen, according to the Pathanamthitta police.

Furthermore, allegedly when the girl was 16 years old, the accused took her on a bike to Achankottumali near her house and raped her in a rubber plantation in an uninhabited area. The event was recorded on his phone.

Later, during the investigation, it was revealed that Subin showed it to the other accused who were his friends. The statement by Pathanamthitta police reveals that they took her to Achankottumali in a group and gang-raped her.

The Kerala Police made the latest arrest in the case on Sunday. The accused, VS Arun (25), was taken into custody near his house in the district.

The Ilavumthitta police registered 17 cases from 10 to 14 this month, with a total of 25 accused. The fifth accused in the first case, S Sudhi, is in jail in a POCSO case registered by the Pathanamthitta police last year.

A total of 30 cases were registered in four stations in the district based on the student's statement (Pathanamthitta 11, Ilavumthitta 17, Pandalam 1, Malayalapuzha 1). Of these, two accused in the case registered at Pandalam station were arrested on the same day.

The Malayalapuzha police team stayed in Chennai for two days and took the accused into custody in a secret operation conducted with the help of the cyber cell, said the police.

The accused were being arrested in the cases at Ilavumthitta and Pathanamthitta police stations right from the beginning.

Among those who have been accused of sexually abusing the teen are her coaches, classmates, and fellow athletes. The district-level athlete, a girl of Dalit identity, had been sexually abused since she was 13. The incident of sexual abuse came to light when volunteers of the Kerala Mahila Samakhya Society met the girl during a random field visit.

Advocate N Rajeev, who heads the Pathanamthitta Child Welfare Committee, told that the girl’s family was unaware of the alleged sexual abuse over the years. “She hadn’t shared anything with the mother. 

Since the girl is a district-level athlete, she has attended various sports camps over the years. That situation might have facilitated this series of sexual abuse,” he added.

“She used the mobile phone of her father, an alcoholic. Most of the perpetrators were identified from the list of contacts in the mobile phone. Many numbers were found saved in it,” Rajeev said.

The 18-year-old girl from Pathanamthitta district reportedly stated that her family was unaware she was being sexually abused. 

The arrested men are reportedly from the settlement where the girl lived and neighbouring areas.

The boy, also a teenager at the time, sexually assaulted the girl and recorded photos, and videos of her. He later used the footage to threaten her into giving sexual favours to his friend.

According to a News Minute report, this friend brought in more men who sexually assaulted the girl. Over the next few years, daily wage labourers, some men from the same locality abused the girl.

Threatening the girl with her pictures and videos, several accused met the girl at a private bus stand in Pathanamthitta. She was then taken to various locations in vehicles and subjected to abuse, the investigation so far has revealed.

The probe also found that the girl, while she was studying class XII last year, was taken by a youth who was acquainted with her through Instagram to a rubber plantation in Ranni, where he raped her along with three others. There are five instances of gangrape. The Dalit girl was sexually assaulted inside a car and at the Pathanamthitta General Hospital in January 2024.

The report mentioned that the girl's photos and videos circulated among men and even minors. Some accused have been identified as some students from her college and are her classmates from her school. The accused contacted the girl through WhatsApp and Instagram. Two accused are currently out of India.

"Word may have spread from one man to another, to their circle of friends or colleagues. Quite a lot of the accused are from her neighbourhood and daily wage labourers, but there are others too. We were shocked to hear her name so many men,” N Rajeev, chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), told TNM.

The gangrape came to light when the girl was councelled by the Child Welfare Committee, after the victim's teachers at an educational institution informed the panel about noticeable changes in her behaviour. The Committee, subsequently, notified the police and an investigation is on.