Nearly four days after Thrissur east police filed a case against NRI businessman and Padma Shri awardee Sundar Menon for allegedly assaulting a woman, the police are yet to make any leads in the case.
22-year-old MBA student Parvathy Venugopal had accused Sundar Menon of barging into her residence late on Sunday night and threatening to harm her father Venugopal.
Speaking to The News Minute, the MBA student said that she just doesn’t understand what the delay is about.
“I filed the complaint on Monday and there has been absolutely no development in the case. Does this mean that somebody who assaulted a woman can walk around freely?” said Parvathy.
According to the police, Sundar Menon, who lives just a few kilometers from the victim’s residence, has since been absconding.
He has been charged under sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 294 B (for uttering obscene words) and section 340 (wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code.
Sundar, an acquaintance of her father Venugopal had on Sunday gone to their apartment in an inebriated condition.
“My parents weren’t at home at the time. I opened the door thinking my father had returned. By then I realized that he was drunk, I had kept the door partially open. I asked him to come back later, but he barged into the house and threatened to harm my father,” she said.
As Parvathy grabbed her phone to inform her mother, Sundar Menon who suspected that Parvathy was filming the entire incident, allegedly snatched the phone from her hands.
“When I resisted, he twisted my right arm and pushed me down on the floor,” she recollected with horror, the incidents that transpired in less than 15 minutes.
She sustained a fracture on her right arm.
Parvathy then locked herself up in the bedroom and informed a neighbor, who along with Sundar's driver took him out of the house. Sundar Menon also threatened Parvathy's mother when she returned home a few minutes later, she said.
It was however, not the first time Sundar Menon had allegedly threatened her father. Earlier on Sunday, he had told Venugopal that "he will not stay happy for long."
Venugopal maintained that Sundar was only an acquaintance and that Sundar suspects him to be behind some legal cases filed against him.
“Somebody might have deliberately misled him to think that I was responsible for the cases. It was unclear what exactly he said, as he was under the influence of alcohol,” Venugopal said.
Asked about the delay in arresting him despite the complaint, Thrissur East station CI Sethu said that enquiry was underway, but that the accused is absconding.
"We cannot arrest someone purely based on a complaint. At this moment, I can only say that we are conducting the enquiry," he said.
Sundar Menon is the Founder and CEO of Sun Group International, a prominent name in the Middle-East energy sector.