Three days after a case was booked against a Kerala Imam, who is still absconding for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl in Vithura in Thiruvananthapuram, the Nedumangad police have taken the Imam’s brother into custody for helping the Imam escape.
Nedumangad Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP), D Ashokan told TNM that Al Ameen, the elder brother of Shafiq Al Qassimi, Chief Imam of the Tholicode Muslim Mosque, was taken into custody from his house in Ernakulam on Friday after it was found that he was the one who helped the Imam evade the police after a case was booked against him.
“The Innova car that was used by the Imam in which the minor girl was taken to the forest area in Vithura was also seized by the shadow team of Nedumangad police in Ernakulam,” DySP Ashokan said.
The Imam was found to have stayed in Al Ameen’s house in hiding, till he found out that the police have begun their search outside Thiruvananthapuram as well. The DySP told TNM that further details can only be obtained after questioning the brother, who is being brought to Thiruvananthapuram.
It’s been more than 10 days since the 15-year-old girl was sexually assaulted and the Imam, who is the prime accused in the case, remains absconding. On Thursday, the police told TNM that the medical report of the victim confirms that she was sexually assaulted.
The victim is currently under the protection of the Child Welfare Committee under the legal provision known as CNCP or Child in Need of Care and Protection (Section 2 of Juvenile Justice).
The incident of the abuse came to light after the All India Imams Council in a Facebook post on February 5 had announced that it has suspended one of their state committee members as a “disciplinary action”. However, it came to be known only later that he had sexually assaulted a minor.