Kerala IPS officer R Sreelekha, the investigation officer in the infamous 2010 Shreya Benny drowning/murder case, has revealed startling realities. Sreelekha alleged that Shreya, who attended a church’s Sunday school camp, was murdered. The former IPS officer added that CPM leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan (then Home Minister) saved the accused Christian priest and nuns.

Shreya, a 12-year-old girl, was found dead in a pond at the ACCEPT Kripa Bhavan campus, a Christian spirituality center near Alappuzha town, on 17 October 2010. She was staying at a cottage with ten other girls and a nun. Sixty-seven other children were living in different quarters inside the same compound. Incidentally, the Shreya case still lingers in Kerala courts after 13 years. 

Sreelekha, the first IPS officer from Kerala and a former Director General of Police (DGP), was the Crime Branch Inspector General of Police (IG) at the time of the incident. The former lecturer who worked for the Reserve Bank of India joined the Kerala police in January 1987, aged just 26, and retired in December 2020 after 34 years of service.  

Sreelekha said that in 2010, Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan requested that they be arrested no matter how high a position the accused occupied. Father Mathew Moonnattinmugham, alias Mathukutty, was the prime accused. Mathew was ACCEPT Kripa Bhavan Drug Abuse Center Director and Sunday School Camp Manager under the Archdiocese of Changanassery.

Another accused was Sneha Maria alias Reji, a nun and the in-charge of the Christian missionary institution. Mathew was the director of the Church center and conducted a ‘personality development program’ for Sunday School students inside the vast compound near Pakky Junction in the Alappuzha district of Kerala. Sreelekha accused Kodiyeri of protecting the guilty priest/nun and the church.  

In October 2010, after an investigation, Sreelekha informed the then DGP Jacob Punnoos that Mathukutty was the main accused and would be arrested soon. Forensics investigators found Mathukutty’s fingerprints on the room door where the children slept. He had forced it open, establishing that the priest was the accused. 

Sreelekha alleged that this crucial piece of evidence disappeared later. She was immediately transferred from the crime branch and appointed the central region’s IG. From then on, the investigation was sabotaged vigorously, allegedly at the behest of the controversial Kodiyeri. The CPM leader who died in October 2022 has a history of helping and aiding shady characters, including anti-national terrorists. 

Without naming anyone, Sreelekha alleged that a bishop tried to influence her to save Mathukutty. When that failed, the church, local police, and state administration tried hard to insinuate that Shreya had the habit of sleepwalking. They spread the word that the young girl drowned in the pond while walking at night. 

Sreelekha said the victim had bite marks on her lips. Medical experts confirmed that the spots were too strong and could have been caused only by someone who had bitten hard on them. But the church propaganda was that the fish in the pond had nibbled the young girl’s lips. Sreelekha said that no such fish were found when police drained the pond.

The former DGP said that the only person who took a genuine interest in trying to bring justice for Shreya was a local social worker, Kalarcode Venugopalan Nair. Sreelekha admitted that even today, Venugopal was waging a lone legal battle. Interestingly, Sreelekha’s confessions come when the court hears the Shreya murder case this Friday. 

The case was transferred from the local police to the state crime branch and subsequently to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Suspiciously, the CBI accepted it after much dilly-dallying and decisive intervention from the court.

Even the CBI chargesheet mentioned it as a negligence case against the first and second accused, Mathukutty and Mary. Venugopal opposed the CBI report, informed the court it was to help the accused, and reaffirmed that Shreya was murdered.

Sreelakha alleged that the church authorities shifted Sheya’s body from the pond without informing the police. The fire brigade removed the lifeless body and shifted it to the hospital. It is also mysterious that Shreya’s relatives and the Action Council, who were initially on the scene demanding an investigation, suddenly withdrew.

Shreya’s Mysterious Death

Shreya, the daughter of auto driver Ezhaparayil Benny and his wife Suja, studied at St Antony’s School in Alappuzha. She attended an awareness camp from 15 October to 17 October at the ACCEPT Kripa Bhavan, an institution under the Archdiocese of Changanassery. On 16 October, Shreya, who had gone to sleep after dinner, was found missing. In the subsequent search, her body was found in a pond near the institution, around 100 m from where she had slept.

Church-leaning media claimed that, as per a witness, the 12-year-old girl was last seen combing her hair in the dormitory around 12.45 past midnight. This was suspicious since children attending such camps retire to bed pretty early. Allegedly, this theory was put forth to instigate that the child was mentally disturbed. 

The second accused, Maria, the nun who stayed with Shreya and ten other girls on 16 October, claimed their room did not have proper door locks. Maria also declared that Shreya was sleeping near the door. “We came to know that Shreya was missing only around 6.45 a.m. on 17 October”, she said.

To make it appear that Shreya had the habit of walking in her sleep, Kripa Bhavan authorities allegedly spread rumors that the child fell into the pond while walking at night and drowned. However, the locals and the young girl’s family strongly opposed this allegation. Locals who knew the compound said there were several obstacles, like tanks and storage facilities, between the cottage and the pond and that Shreya would have stumbled and woken up somewhere in between. 

On 25 October, Shreya’s parents complained to Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, demanding a detailed inquiry into the case. On 29 October, Crime Branch IG R Sreelekha interrogated the priests, nuns, and the maid of Kripa Bhavan. She also interacted with the dead child’s parents.  

Her post-mortem report revealed two marks on her lower lip, and with Mathukutty’s fingerprints all over the place, Sreelekha was about to arrest him and Maria. This was when Kodiyeri intervened and shunted her out of the investigation. 

By November 2010, Crime Branch Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) D Rajagopal was handed the Shreya murder probe. By then, the church spread rumors about fish nibbling on the dead girl’s lips were making the rounds. One of Rajagopal’s first instructions was to drain the pond. Many alleged that this would wipe out any remaining evidence, but authorities still made the decision.  

On 18 November, Fire & Rescue personnel drained the small pond. The only species found in the pond was the small striped panchax (Poonjan), which rarely causes the kind of heavy bruises on the girl’s face. Still, the Crime Branch maintained that the possibility of the fish causing the bruises could not be ruled out. The Crime Branch filed a charge sheet listing Mathukutty and Maria as accused and charged them with IPC Section 304 (death by negligence).

As usual, having appeared as the people’s leader, CM Achuthanthan failed to follow up on the case. There were allegations that he was just a party dummy who CPM leaders like Kodiyeri and Pinarayi Vijayan were using. Those contentions proved true in 2016 when these communist bosses usurped power and kicked out Achuthanthan.

In May 2011, the Communists were booted out, only to be replaced by the genuine church nominee, Oomman Chandy. He handed over the Shreya case, which was then investigated by Rajagopal, to CBI. Interestingly, early 2012 reports suggested that the bureau had expressed its inability to take over the investigation citing a staff shortage. We all know the alleged Vatican mole handling affairs in Delhi back then.

Interestingly, Kerala police shared all investigation-related documents with a CBI team. By early 2012, the ground situation, too, had changed drastically. The church allegedly intervened heavily and sabotaged the inquiry from the inside out.

The same crime branch team took up the case again, but Shreya’s family said they did not want further investigation. By then, Shreya’s father, Benny, and his brother had bought a lorry and an autorickshaw. Shreya’s mother started a new job in an English medium convent school in Alappuzha. Only Shreya’s sister Shruthi and her 90-year-old grandfather Mathai wanted the culprits to be arrested.

One cannot entirely blame Benny. The first response after Shreya’s death came from a pastor who claimed that a person had informed him that he had seen Shreya’s father near Kripa Bhavan around midnight on 16 October 2010. Alappuzha South CI V K Sanal Kumar, who initially investigated the case, even interrogated Benny. After all, the church works in mysterious ways and openly admits to it.

Rape/murder/suicide cases like Kiliroor and Kaviyoor have shown Keralites how Kerala police and the CBI have blamed the victims’ families. Instead of punishing the perpetrators, these security agencies have shamelessly protected the high and the mighty.

They have admitted the same in court, albeit many years later. Incidentally, now-dead Kodiyeri Balakrishnan’s name also popped up in those cases. Our judicial system has ensured that neither the erring officers nor the politicians involved were penalized.

“We believe that Shreya fell into the pond while trying to escape from an official at the retreat (Kripa Bhavan), who tried to misbehave with the girl in his room on 16 October 16,” Rajagopal said later. The DySP added that “a narco-analysis test on the official is needed, but he refused. Per the Supreme Court’s 5 May 2010 judgment, a person’s consent should be taken before conducting any brain-mapping or narco test.”

Venugopalan Nair, the social worker, said the then crime branch IG Sreelekha had told him they could not do anything. “CBI will not take up this case. I will approach the high court and request an effective investigation,” he said. Nair had earlier requested the high court to monitor the investigation of the Shreya case.

In September 2019, the Kerala High Court ordered the CBI to take over the case after Venugopalan filed a petition alleging foul play in the probe. The high court quashed the Crime Branch chargesheet and asked the CBI to oversee the investigation. In March 2021, the CBI filed a charge sheet against the priest and nun.

The injuries on her face, confusion over whether she had the habit of sleepwalking, and contradictions in the statements given by inmates and authorities of Kripa Bhavan and Shreya’s family allegedly betraying her have shrouded the drowning/murder incident in mystery.