Balussery grama panchayat president P.P. Raveendranath, who was booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act on Thursday, has resigned from his post. Though the police conducted searches at his residence and other locations to record his arrest, he could not be traced.
Police officers said the panchayat president was booked on the basis of a written petition filed by a boy studying in Class X. The boy first filed a complaint with the Childline India Foundation and they later took it up with the local police station. The boy, in his complaint, alleged that the man had sexually abused him at his house.
Mr. Raveendranth, in his statement to the media, has alleged that leaders of the BJP and the RSS from the region were trying to tarnish his political image with baseless claims. The boy, a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, was being used as a tool to fabricate the case, he alleged.
