A special police team investigating the February 22 incident at Mukkali, near Attappady, in which mentally challenged tribal youth Madhu was beaten to death by local people has said that forest officials have not connived with the assailants.
Madhu's mother Malli and his sister Chandrika had alleged that more than two dozen people could not have trekked 4 km into the deep interiors of the buffer zone to drag Madhu out of a cave where he stayed and beat him up brutally, without the active connivance of forest officials belonging to the Silent Valley National Park. Mukkali and Madhu’s hamlet Kadukumanna are located in the buffer zone of the park.
During his visit to Mukkali soon after the incident, Forest Minister K. Raju had promised action against the forest officials. Now the police were saying the allegation had no truth. According to sources, K. Marakkar, one among the 16 local people arrested on the charge of murdering Madhu, had spotted the cave in which Madhu was dwelling. Marakkar was employed with a teak plantation of the Forest Department near Kadukumanna, which was managed by a private contractor on lease. It was Marakkar who prompted others to trace Madhu and beat him up, the police said. The mob had entered the forest without permission and the whole act was illegal, the police said.
ADVERTISEMENT
The police also said the report that Madhu was beaten up two days before his death was also baseless. The autopsy was conducted only two days after his death. So some people wrongly reached the conclusion that he was roughed up even two days before his death, the police said.