At Vaniyakkadu village on the outskirts of Paravur municipal town in Kerala’s Ernakulam district, Chavadiparambil Sudheer, a real-estate broker who had managed bit roles in movies, would brag about his connections in the film industry. His cellphone held photographs of him posing with film stars and he would show these to anyone who cared to see. Sudheer had even got a small role in a television serial for his school-going daughter.
So neighbours didn’t suspect anything when Sudheer and his daughter frequently left for “shooting locations” on his motorbike. That was early 2009, the beginning of what has, in a little over two years, unravelled to become Kerala’s biggest sex scandal, featuring, among others, two CPI(M) local leaders, a TV serial director and a police officer. On March 8, 2011, the girl complained to the police that her father had pushed her into an organised sex racket. It now turns out that over 18 months, the minor girl was abused by 130 people across three states.
Five months into the probe, the police have identified 130 accused and say the list is only getting longer. So far, 14 pimps, including three couples, are among the 78 who have been arrested in the case. Each pimp leads the police to a new network of agents and a battery of customers.
It was in May 2009 that the girl was first abused—Sudheer had taken her to a film director in a star hotel in Kochi. The victim was 14 then, waiting for her class IX results.
In her statement to the police, the girl recalls, “I went to Kochi city, riding pillion on my father’s bike. He wanted me to meet a film director. He took me to a hotel at 6 p.m. A heavily-built man assaulted me. I bled profusely. I was allowed to leave the hotel at 10 that night...A week after the first assault, my father took me to Kochi city again. This time, I met Khadeeja and Bindu (two pimps who are now under arrest). I was taken to a flat upstairs while my father waited on the ground floor. Khadeeja gave me Rs 1,000, saying I could buy my class X textbooks.’’
According to the police, Sudheer had raped his daughter before pushing her into the sex trade.
In no time, the girl had unwittingly become part of the state’s organised sex scene, riddled with pimps and their customers. She was taken to several agents, who took her to cities in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Sudheer was busy too—his cellphone kept ringing and pimps came knocking at his door, say police.
The girl recounts how her father sometimes dropped her right up to the door of the client, and at other times, he would hand her over to agents who waited in their cars at various pick-up points.
“My father would drop me at one point, from where agents or their customers took me away in their cars. A few hours later or sometimes the following day, they would drop me at another location, where my father would be waiting with his bike,” the girl says in her statement.
She talks about how the drivers of the vehicles, in which she was taken to various customers, too exploited her.
Initially, the father took her out only on weekends. As more pimps got involved, the frequency of the trips increased and she had to skip her classes and eventually drop out of class XI. Police say Sudheer got involved in the racket in the hope of finding a better space in the film industry.
Investigators say the girl was sold to customers after much bargaining. “Minor girls are much sought after in the flesh trade. When a minor girl reaches a pimp, he or she alerts her clientele. There are people who are willing to pay Rs 1 lakh for a minor girl. This girl was paid up to Rs 40,000,” says a police source.
The money would be equally shared between the agent and the girl’s father. If she was lucky, she got tips—Rs 100, Rs 1,000 or even a new dress.
Police say that unlike other sex rackets in Kerala, this one went undetected for long because the agents took the girl to star hotels, flats, resorts and villas, where the police do not conduct raids.
Sudheer had managed to keep his wife Subaida out of his business. But she found out soon enough. “Once, I was taken to Tamil Nadu, where I was brutally abused for five days. I came back with minor wounds and scratches all over my body. My mother saw them and forced me to reveal everything. She fought with my father and he stopped troubling me for a few days,” the girl says.
But he soon went back to his ways. When Subaida objected, Sudheer would turn violent, beating her up and smashing things at home. On one occasion, when the girl refused to meet clients, Sudheer hung his younger son, Naufal, upside down from the ceiling fan.
The girl kept her trauma to herself. But she soon started developing skin diseases from her frequent contacts with men. “Health problems seem to have given her the courage to speak out,’’ say police.
When she first spoke, it was to her grandmother (Subaida’s mother) and aunt, who live a few kilometres away. Her grandmother Khadeejumma says, “One day, my granddaughter came running to our house and shut herself in one of the rooms. She had escaped from Sudheer, who was about to hand her over to another agent.”
“She was with me till her class VI. I had forced Sudheer to take her back, saying a child should stay with her parents. I had no idea what he was up to,” says Khadeejumma, breaking into sobs.
The matter was taken to the local mahallu committee (the village committee under the mosque), which asked the girl to go to the police.
At the family’s single-storeyed house in Vaniyakkadu village, the girl’s brother Naufal opens the door. His mother Subaida, who was arrested and later released on bail, doesn’t stay home during the day—“out of shame”, says the boy. Naufal, who is now in class IX, has stopped attending classes. “I want to die. I have had enough of this. I have to go all the way to the town to even buy provisions,” he says before slamming the door shut.
Shamsudheen, who lives next door, says he finds it hard to believe Sudheer could be involved in a sex racket. “There was no hint of any scandal. We thought it was perfectly normal for father and daughter to be going out together. When the girl complained to the police about the torture, Sudheer tried to get away, saying his daughter had falsely implicated him because he had objected to her love affair,’’ he says.
The girl, now 16, is recovering at a government-run juvenile home in Kochi and is being treated by a panel of doctors that includes clinical psychiatrist Dr Sandesh P T.
“Sex rackets are like whirlpools. Once a victim gets sucked into it, she can’t escape. Moreover, the girl had developed a condition called ‘learned helplessness and habituation’, a situation in which a victim feels there is no way of getting out of a trap,’’ says Dr Sandesh.
The government is planning a rehabilitation package for the girl to help her move on. But as the investigation continues, she will have to relive the trauma as she goes through endless identification parades and evidence-gathering exercises.
According to Dr Sandesh, the girl has mixed feelings for her father, what he calls “a dual state of mind”. “Sometimes, she hates him. But then, she is just a girl and like any other girl, she thinks of him as her father.”
Sex scandals in Kerala
Suryanelli, 1996: A class X student from Suryanelli village in Idukki was sexually harassed and assaulted, first by a bus conductor and later, several others, for 40 days, during which she was taken from one place to another. The accused, initially estimated at 42, included some well-known people.
Ice Cream Parlour, 1997: The case relates to allegations that an ice cream parlour in Kozhikode was used as a cover to lure young girls into sex rackets. IUML leader P K Kunhalikutty quit as Industries Minister in the UDF government in 2005 after one of the alleged victims dragged his name into the case. The case was later dismissed by the court for want of evidence.
Kothamangalam, 1997: A minor girl from Kothamangalam in Ernakulam district was lured by a neighbour into the sex trade on the pretext of giving her a job. Police had identified 40 people.
Mattanchery, 2002: A girl from a poor family was abused by 50 people, including a film artiste, a Christian priest and political leaders. (IE)