The sessions court in Thodupuzha on Thursday rejected the bail application of Arun Anand, the prime accused in the murder of a seven-year-old boy in March this year. Arun, who was in a live-in relationship with the boy’s mother, brutally thrashed the boy and delayed his treatment. In June, a chargesheet was filed in the boy’s murder.
The incident took place on March 28 at Kumaramangalam near Thodupuzha in Kerala’s Idukki district. Arun brutally beat up and thrashed the boy, which left the boy with critical injuries including a fracture in the skull, ruptured lungs and a head injury, along with internal bleeding. After a 10-day battle on a ventilator, the boy succumbed to his injuries and died on April 6.
The victim’s four-year-old sibling then told the police that the accused allegedly sexually abused him and the victim.
The police then registered a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POSCO) case against Arun, and a second chargesheet was registered. On Wednesday, Arun filed a bail plea in this POCSO case, but the sessions court for POSCO rejected the application.
The court directed the public prosecutor to complete the trial in the POSCO case within three months. Arun is currently in judicial custody.
The 35-year-old mother of the siblings, who is the second accused in the murder case, was also arrested for suppressing facts, but later released on bail. CCTV footage of the Chazhikattu hospital in Idukki — where the boy was first taken after the assault — showed that the Arun and the mother tried to delay treatment for the child after the trauma.
On Tuesday, the mother had approached the High Court to quash the case against her. In her plea, she said that she too was injured when she attempted to intervene when the accused assaulted her son.
The victim’s four-year-old sibling is under the protection of his paternal grandfather.
Although the maternal grandmother filed a habeas corpus plea in the Kerala High Court, the Idukki District Child Welfare Committee (CWC) gave the child’s custody to his paternal grandfather in June.
The CWC also directed the paternal grandfather to make arrangements to allow the maternal grandmother to visit the child.