Thursday, April 03, 2014
VOL. 13 ISSUE 28
Ananth Kumar is a conspirator, says Pramod Muthalik
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Student interns to campaign with Congress Party
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Bloody scrawl accuses cops Apurva Venkat & Shweta Nair The brother of the realtor who hanged himself after he poisoned his wife and children says he has not been given any information by police. Kaushik Sharma injected poison into his wife and two children before hanging himself in the family home on March 28. He wrote a four-page suicide note and also used his own blood to daub a written message on the wall of his apartment blaming senior cops and politicians for his actions. It also emerged that the dead realtor’s niece, Sumegha, was the last person to speak to him alive. She reportedly found her dead uncle and his family the next morning. Ramakrishna Reddy, elder brother of Kaushik Sharma said: “The cops haven’t told me anything about the investigation. I don’t even have a copy of the suicide note. Sumegha and I are heading to the commissioner’s office for getting to know more on the case. I don’t know why my brother did this. “Sumegha has been crying since two days and hasn’t even eaten anything. Please try to respect my baby’s privacy as she is not in a condition to speak to anyone.” Reddy is a real estate broker based in K.R Puram and hasn’t spoken to Kaushik for the past eight years. Kaushik had a twin brother, Santosh who died last year, in Andhra Pradesh. Sumegha, San-
tosh’s daughter, has been living above Reddy’s apartment in K.R Puram since her father’s death. Reddy said, “Kaushik has been paying Sumegha an amount of Rs.15,000 – 20,000 per month for her expenses. ” Kaushik left a suicide note accusing and naming officials of Andhra Pradesh police, Central Crime Station (CCS). Kaushik’s brother allegedly handled the black money of politicians, according to police sources. He was a real estate investor. The brother died last year and it’s believed the politicians lost all their money. The politicians suspected Kaushik had their money. The note says that members of CCS Hyderabad and some politicians came to Kaushik’s house and took him away to Hyderabad. They questioned, tortured and threatened him for the money, according to the note. They asked him to get them money and dropped him back to his house on March 28. This pushed Kaushik to take the extreme step. Suicide message written on the wall in Kaushik wrote a message on the wall blood : “Held Suresh AP police Reddy + in his own blood, “Held Suresh AP CCS Hyd + rob our money + site + gold” police Reddy + CCS Hyd + rob our
Sumegha, niece of Kaushik Sharma, in conversation with police. money + site + gold.” Three kilograms of gold was found inside Kaushik’s apartment. He owned two more properties in Vakeel Garden City. A case has been registered on Kaushik under section 302 for murdering his wife and children. There is another complaint registered for abetment of suicide on some “unnamed person”. The case has now been transferred to CID for further investigation. Despite repeated attempts, the commissioner of police was unavailable for comment. The suicide note has now been sent to a forensic laboratory in Madiwala for further examination.
Three quarters of crimes against children go unsolved Aurosmita Acharya Information obtained from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that only a quarter of recorded crimes against children are successfully resolved by the Children’s Court of Karnataka. According to the latest reports of the NCRB, there is a 50 per cent increase in recorded cases of crimes against children each year. Only half of these reach the stage where a trial is held at court. The records show that in 2013, 1508 cases of crimes against children were registered. Out of this number, the alleged offenders in only 414 cases underwent trial last year. In a bid to tackle this issue, in 2012, the central government sanctioned a sum of Rs. 1 crore in order to set up the Children’s Court. The Court was set up in accordance to the guidelines specified by the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO).
Despite repeated attempts, the Woman and Child Welfare Department declined to provide details regarding the usage of this fund. The POCSO Act, 2012 states that, “The State government shall in consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court, by notification in the Official Gazette, designate for each district a court of session to be a Special Court to try the offences under the Act.” The Children’s Court which operates in the premises of the District Civil Court remains closed during office hours on week days. Commenting on this, Sanjay, Officer-in- Charge, District Civil Court, said that the court remains closed because of “lack of cases in hand.” A report prepared by the Asian Center for Human Rights, which carried out an assessment of the manner in which the Children’s Court was functioning, stated that, “Juvenile justice remained deplorable. Juveniles were kept in the Observation Home for periods of time ranging from seven months to a year without being charge
sheeted.” The report added that “over seventy per cent of the children in the observation home in Madiwala had long crossed the remand limit of six months (in accordance to the Juvenile Justice Act).” Speaking about the matter, Sheila Devraj, Head of Child Line, a nationally-reputed child rights organization, said that Child and Juvenile Justice Courts lack judges and Special Public Prosecutors. She added that, in addition to this, the judges need to be sensitive towards the children under trial. “Cases under Narcotics, Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 are being tried in the same court, which violates the POCSO Act 2012”, she said. According to her, Child Line has filed a number of petitions in order to get such cases registered at special courts under the POCSO Act but their efforts have been in vain. Tanuja was rescued in 2006 but her (Continued on Page 4) case is still in court, eight years on