Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Friday dismissed a plea filed by the three accused in the sensational human sacrifice case, in which two women were allegedly killed in a brutal manner, seeking to quash a magisterial court decision granting their custody to the police for 12 days, holding that there was nothing wrong with the order.
The high court, however, allowed each of the accused to meet their lawyer for 15 minutes on Friday and Sunday. The accused, in the plea filed through lawyer B A Aloor, had sought permission to meet lawyers during the police custody period or investigation. The high court rejected other contentions raised by the lawyer of the accused.
When the matter was taken up, the Director General of Prosecution said the investigation has to be carried out at various levels and the accused has no right to give any sort of direction on the matter. The court remarked that the lower court passed the custody order with great care and caution and agreed with the prosecution argument that the accused cannot dictate in what manner the probe has to be conducted.
In their plea, accused Mohammed Shafi (52), Bhagaval Singh (68), a massage therapist; and his wife Laila (59), had also sought directive to the state police chief not to parade them and also not to disclose their confession statements to the media and public till filing of chargesheet. The accused had alleged that the investigating team had published wrong information in order to defame their dignity before the public at large, but the trial court has failed to consider these aspects in proper sense which ultimately resulted in granting their 12 days police custody to the probe agency, despite being strongly opposed by them.
They had also alleged that it is a passion for certain investigating officers to disseminate to the media piecemeal or full information regarding the progress of investigation. A court here on October 13 had granted Kerala police custody of the three accused in the case for detailed interrogation.
In the custody application filed before the court here, police have said the accused need to be further interrogated to probe whether there was any other reason behind the human sacrifice.
The police said they need to investigate whether there are more victims of this horrific crime. The chopped body parts of the deceased were exhumed from the premises of the couple's house at Elanthoor village in Pathanamthitta district on October 11. The first woman went missing on September 26 and the probe led to Shafi. On further interrogating him, police found that the trio had earlier murdered the second victim in a similar manner in June this year. (PTI)
