Kerala CPM district secretary K Radhakrishnan revealed the name of a rape survivor publicly
Kerala's Health Minister KK Shailaja has defended a senior leader from her party the ruling CPM, saying he did no wrong in publicly revealing the name of a rape survivor. It was not a "big deal," she said of an act punishable by two years in prison.
"If former Speaker Radhakrishnan has taken the victim's name, you may want to make a big deal out of it, I don't think there is anything wrong with it. Victims, their parents usually want to hide their names because of the shame associated, but they are not the ones who have done anything wrong," the minister told reporters.
She had been asked to comment on CPM district secretary K Radhakrishnan, also a former Speaker of the Kerala Assembly, naming a woman who has alleged that she was gang-raped by four friends of her husband, one of whom is a CPM politician.
"If she can name people who have not been proved guilty, so can she be named. And some local media have already named her," Mr Radhakrishnan had said, drawing severe criticism and demands from the opposition parties that action be taken against him.
"Mr. Radhakrishnan is not above the law. Revealing the victim's name can entail two years of imprisonment. Action should be taken against him," said Kerala Congress chief VM Sudheeran.
The BJP's Kummanam Rajasekharan said there had been a "criminal lapse" by the CPM leader. The police has ordered a preliminary inquiry into the complaints against Mr Radhakrishnan and said if he is found guilty, an FIR will be registered against him.
Last week, the 32-year-old woman addressed a press conference with her face covered, her husband and activists by her side. She wept as she alleged that she was gang raped by four men, including the local CPM leader, and detailed how she was harassed and humiliated by the police, who forced her to withdraw her case.
The politician she has named, a councillor, has accused the woman of lying and getting back at him for demanding money he had loaned to the couple.
He has been suspended by the CPM after chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan stepped in. The police is now investigating the woman's allegations.