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Kusumavathi, mother of Sowjanya, the teenager raped and murdered in Dharmasthala in 2012, has lodged a complaint against the masked man in the case and demanded that a narco test be conducted on him.
In her complaint to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case, Kusumavathi said the masked man, who earlier worked as a sanitation worker in Dharmasthala, seemed to know who was behind Sowjanya’s murder but refrained from revealing it.
“This man was known to many people in Dharmasthala for disposing of dead bodies, and my father-in-law and brother were also aware of his profession,” she wrote.
She said the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had directed her to appear in Ujire on August 13. There, she learnt that a woman who came for the same questioning and introduced herself as the masked man’s sister told the Commission that he was threatened after Sowjanya’s murder and fled Dharmasthala fearing for his life. “If he spoke out about the perpetrators of Sowjanya’s rape and murder, he would be hunted down and killed, no matter where he went,” Kusumavathi quoted her as saying.
She also noted that in an interview to a YouTube channel called D Talks before the SIT was formed, the masked man had claimed that another person had told him the names of those responsible for Sowjanya’s rape and murder. That person was later killed.
Kusumavathi has demanded a probe into these statements and a narco test on the masked man.
The SIT has accepted her complaint. An SIT official, however, told TNM that they cannot seek the sister’s statement from the NHRC as it is a judicial body, and would instead have to question her directly.
The masked man was arrested by the SIT last week for producing a skull that he had not exhumed, but claiming otherwise to a magistrate.