POCSO case: No relief from SC and Kerala HC, hotel owner surrenders before police

PTI, Mar 13, 2022, 12:01 PM IST

After the Supreme Court and the Kerala High Court denied any protection from arrest to city-based Hotel 18 owner in a POCSO case, he surrendered before the police on Sunday morning.

Hotel 18 owner, Roy J Vayalat, surrendered at the Kochi City Police Commissioner’s office in the morning after the Supreme Court on Friday denied any relief to him in his plea seeking anticipatory bail in the case.

Senior public prosecutor C K Suresh confirmed that the hotel owner surrendered at the Commissioner’s office in the morning.

Earlier, the Kerala High Court on March 8 had denied the relief to Vayalat and his friend Syju M Thankachan, saying that they are not entitled to anticipatory bail in view of the nature of allegations against them.

The High Court, however, granted anticipatory bail to co-accused Anjali Vadakkepurakkal for the reasons that she is a woman and aged 24 years.

The three accused had alleged that the complaint of molestation and sexual assault against them by the minor’s mother was ”a deliberate attempt at blackmail”.

The victim’s mother too had told the court that she, her daughter and the two other women were taken to Kochi on the false pretext of a business meeting and the intention was to take them to the two accused men.

After hearing all sides, the court agreed with the stand of the prosecution and the victim’s mother and said, ”Prima facie, this indicates that the de facto complainant (mother), her minor daughter and two other women were brought to Cochin on a false pretext.” Hotel 18, Vayalat and Thankachan recently came in the news in connection with the deaths of three people, including two models, in a car accident which allegedly resulted as the latter was chasing them in his four-wheeler.

Models Ancy Kabeer (25) and Anjana Shajan (24) had died in the fatal crash on November 1 last year. A third passenger, in the car, succumbed to his injuries a few days later.

According to the prosecution in that case, Thankachan had allegedly stalked the models from a bar to Hotel 18 and when they left that place to avoid him, he chased them.