The claim of a soldier that he was assaulted by a group of Popular Front of India (PFI) workers who wrote ‘PFI’ on his back with green paint is reportedly false. Shine Kumar, who hails from Kollam district in Kerala, had claimed that he was assaulted in Kadakkal on the night of Sunday, September 24. Shine’s friend Joshy however told the police that it was he who painted the letters on the former’s back while in an inebriated state. According to Joshy, Shine asked him to do so in a bid to “become famous”.
On Monday morning, Shine got himself admitted in the Kadakkal Taluk Hospital and filed a police complaint alleging that he was assaulted by a group of men on Sunday night. He had also claimed that he had been planning to return to duty in Rajasthan on Monday, when this incident happened.
Shine’s narrative began with him returning home on Sunday night after going to Joshy’s house to hand over some money. On his way, he was stopped by a group of men who told him that one of his friends was lying drunk in a nearby plot, and asked him to take a look. On his way to the spot where he was told the friend was, one of the men kicked him from behind, making him fall. They then tied his hands, taped his mouth, tore his t-shirt, and wrote ‘PFI’ on his back.
PFI is a banned outfit in India. Based on Shine’s complaint, the Kadakkal police registered a complaint against six identifiable persons. The police had noted the absence of any signs of assault in the site where Shine claimed the incident took place.
On further investigation, the police uncovered discrepancies in Shine’s version of the story. In addition, they had tracked the mobile phones of Shine and Joshy, and found that both the mobile phones were in the same place at the time of the alleged incident.
When questioned about this, Joshy spilled the beans. According to him, Shine called him to his house and asked him to write ‘PFI’ on his back. “I thought he was saying ‘DFI’ wrote that on his back. When he asked me whatI’d written, I said ‘DFI’, and he asked me to correct it as ‘PFI’. Then he asked me to hit him. But I was drunk and I said I cannot do that. Then he gave me a blade and asked me to tear the backside of his t-shirt. He then lay down on the ground and asked me if I could drag him. But I couldn’t do that either. So he stuck tape to his mouth and hands, and asked me to leave. When I asked him why he was doing this, he said he wanted to become famous, but I didn’t understand what he meant by that,” he said.
Based on Joshy’s statement, the police seized the materials that the two used. Both Shine and Joshy have been taken into custody and are being questioned.
In June this year, another soldier had made a similar false claim that his wife was molested and stripped by a 120-strong mob in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvannamalai district. The jawan, named Prabhakaran, had made the claim in a video message that soon went viral across the country. Later, a leaked audio of a conversation purportedly between Prabhakaran and a person named Vinodh had cast doubts on the authenticity of the soldier's claims. TNM visited Palavedu, the village in which Prabhakaran had claimed the incident took place, and found that accusations were false. They were allegedly made to cover up other disputes involving family members of the soldier.