A month after a 26-year-old IT professional, who raised allegations of sexual abuse at an RSS shakha, died by suicide in Kerala, police have booked a man in connection with the case.
The techie, who was from Kerala’s Kottayam district, was found dead at a lodge in Thiruvananthapuram on October 9. In a scheduled message on his Instagram account that appeared after his death, he alleged that he was sexually abused during his days at an RSS shakha, and that the abuse had left him depressed.
During the police investigation, a video was recovered from the techie’s laptop in which he had named the person who he accused of sexually abusing him.
Kanjirappally Deputy Police Superintendent Saju Varghese said the person mentioned in the video has been named in an FIR. “The alleged incident happened years ago, before the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act. The accused person will be arrested and charge-sheeted only on the basis of evidence and legal advice,” he said.
The victim’s family said they have not filed a police complaint. The alleged accused lived close to the family of the victim for several years. One year ago, the man got married and moved elsewhere, the family said.
The techie’s suicide had created a political furore in Kerala, with the CPI(M)’s youth wing, DYFI, and the Congress heavily criticising the RSS.
Congress leader and the MP from Kerala’s Wayanad, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, called the allegations of sexual abuse at RSS shakhas horrifying. “If true, then this is horrifying. Lakhs of young children and teenagers attend these camps all over India,” she had said at the time.
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RSS had termed the death of one of “our Swayamsevaks” sad and unfortunate. It had demanded a comprehensive investigation into the circumstances that led to the unnatural death and into the suicide note that appeared on Instagram. “It contains some dubious and baseless allegations against the Sangh,” it had said.
