Friends and family members of K.K. Jayachandran, a schoolteacher from Kohinoor, Malappuram, who has been detained in the Maldives for the last eight months, allegedly on false complaints of physically abusing a student, are pinning their hopes on diplomatic intervention for his release.
Jyothi Jayachandran, his wife, who left for New Delhi on Friday to meet External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to present her husband’s case in person, told The Hindu that she was worried about Mr. Jayachandran, with whom she had a telephone conversation about two months ago.
“He was shifted to a new location recently about which even he had no clear idea,” she said over the phone on her way to Delhi.
The teachers’ family and friends had submitted memorandums to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, and Shashi Tharoor and Mullappally Ramachandran, MPs.
“There is something seriously dubious about the way his case has been handled by the school management,” said Ms. Jayachandran. He was the senior-most teacher in the school and had a good academic record without any blemish on his personal and professional life.
Good teacherThe writer U.K. Kumaran, who is part of the recently formed writers’ collective taking up the teacher’s cause, said he knew Mr. Jayachandran for the last several years and he used to be a very good teacher liked by all his students.
It was on April 5 this year that the 51-year-old teacher, who is also a writer and social worker, was arrested on a complaint filed by the authorities of Faafu Feali Atoll School, Maldives, where he had been an English teacher for the last seven years.
