A Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso) court in Ernakulam has found Zafar Shah (32) guilty of the murder of a 17-year-old girl student. Shah was sentenced to double life imprisonment. The prosecution proved that Shah abused, tortured, and murdered the young victim and tried to destroy evidence.
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The incident took place on 7 January 2020. While reporting back then, Malayala Manorama called the victim Gopika. The Plus Two girl student who lived and attended school in Ernakulam was murdered brutally.
The 32-year-old Islamist had groomed the minor girl earlier. On that day, Shah, her murderer, invited the girl to Athirapally Waterfalls in Chalakudy Taluk of Thrissur District. Instead, he took the student in a car to Valparai and stabbed her to death. He then flung her dead body into a coffee plantation.
It was later revealed that the victim was pregnant with Shah’s child.
As usual, Gopika departed for her school from her home near Kaloor in Ernakulam on that fateful day. Instead, she climbed into Shah’s car (a stolen one), and the duo roamed the city. By evening, Shah drove off to Athirapally. They covered Athirapally and Vazhachal and entered the deep forests, reaching Valparai late into the night.
When authorities found her body, the minor girl had four deep stabs on her chest. There were more than twenty small and big wounds on the body. Shah was remorseless and told the police that he stabbed Gopika to death with a knife after she rejected his love. Shah then dumped her body on the coffee farm.
By then, the owners of a car workshop where Shah worked, near Maradu in Ernakulam, complained to Maradu police that a car brought for servicing was stolen. They also mentioned that Shah was missing.
After the student did not return, the student’s father filed a complaint at the central police station. However, Shah’s name was not mentioned in the complaint. Later, the father told the police that Shah threatened Gopika by morphing her pictures and harassing the minor. The Central Police registered a case and forwarded the information to other stations.
Malakappara police got information that the stolen car from Marad crossed the Malakappara checkpost and went to Tamil Nadu. Malakappara is situated on the border between Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Shah’s mobile location was tracked, and Malakappara police hurried after him. The message was also forwarded to the Valparai check post.
Valparai is another hill resort in the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu. Valparai police stopped Shah’s car before he reached the Valparai checkpoint. On inspection, the girl was not found in the car. Shah was taken into custody after blood stains were found in the vehicle.
Shah tried to deceive the police team from Malakappara and took them on a wild chase to find the body. Finally, they found the dead body after a 4-hour search. The body of the student who went missing from Kochi was found by the police in a Valparai coffee garden.
An autopsy report revealed that the girl was sexually assaulted before the murder and was four months pregnant. A DNA test later proved that Shah was responsible for the pregnancy. The accused killed the girl by stabbing her several times in the chest and abdomen. Shah was charged with murder, torture, and charges under the POCSO Act.
By 12 May, Shah was granted bail by the High Court. It was reported that the investigating officer had not submitted the chargesheet within 90 days. On 19 May, Shah was allowed to leave the prison.
Later, it was found that the chargesheet had been filed, and counsel made wrong submissions for the accused and the prosecution in the High Court. It was controversial since many thought the accused got bail by misleading the court.
The government requested that the High Court return the accused’s bail application while apologizing for its “inadvertent” error. It further asserted that there was a strong likelihood that the accused would coerce the case’s witness. Acknowledging this, the High Court canceled the bail and ordered the arrest of the accused. By then, around ten days had passed, and the psychopath was on the loose.
Many considered the punishment meted out to be meager.
Charley Thomas alias Govindachamy
Soumya’s killer, Charley Thomas alias Govindachamy, is being produced in court (images courtesy Hindustan Times)
On 1 February 2011, Charley Thomas, alias Govindachamy, a one-armed thief from Virudhachalam in Tamil Nadu, preyed on and assaulted 23-year-old Soumya. She traveled from Ernakulam to Shoranur in an empty ladies’ compartment train. The lady was on her home for her engagement.
Thomas grabbed the victim by her hair and hit her head repeatedly on the compartment’s walls. Though dazed and in extreme pain, the victim resisted the rape attempt. There were allegations that this assault led to the vulnerable victim suffering lethal injuries.
Thomas turned furious when Soumya resisted his rape attempt. The criminal pushed Sowmya out of the moving train. Soumya fell face down on the crossover of the railway line. The killer leaped out of the moving train.
Soumya’s face was covered in blood dripping from the wounds on her head and face when the necrophile sexually assaulted her and escaped. Though she was taken to the hospital later, Soumya died on 6 February due to her injuries and multiple organ dysfunction. The one-armed criminal was arrested at Palakkad railway station the next day.
This rape/murder turned so controversial that by 31 October, KN Raveendra Babu, the Thrissur Fast Track Court judge, declared Thomas guilty of rape and murder. It was revealed that Thomas was a repeat offender who, between 2004 and 2008, was found guilty in eight cases in Tamil Nadu.
On 11 November, nine months after the gruesome rape and murder of Soumya, the special court found Thomas guilty of rape, murder, and dacoity, causing injury during a robbery and criminal trespass. The judge awarded a death sentence. The judgment noted that Thomas committed the offenses in a “diabolic manner” and did not deserve any leniency. The Kerala High Court upheld this verdict.
The media continued to call the criminal Govindachamy/Govinda Swamy. They undertook a hidden agenda to popularize the criminal Swamy/ Chami saga. A Swamy is a Hindu Bhagwan in Malayalam. Bhagwan Ayyappa devotees observing Vratham (austerity and abstinence in their lives) are also called Swamy.
Thomas remained unconcerned throughout the trial and never showed remorse. After the Thrissur Fast Track court sentenced Thomas to death, his first words were, “Could you arrange a tea and vada for me.” Judge Raveendra asked the police to make arrangements. Santhosh, a civil official from Thrissur West Police Station, brought the tea and snacks before Thomas was taken to Kannur Central Prison.
Soumya’s mother, Sumathi, cries and declares she was denied justice (Images courtesy Hindustan Times)
By late October 2016, the Supreme Court bench of Mr. Ranjan Gogoi, Prafulla C. Pant, and Uday Umesh Lalit set aside murder charges and commuted Thomas’s death sentence to life imprisonment. Mentioning technicalities, the apex court altered the punishment to rigorous imprisonment for seven years. The verdict stated that the convict would continue to be imprisoned for life.
The Supreme Court panel was not persuaded that Thomas had pushed Soumya off the train, resulting in one of the two wounds believed to have caused her death. The prosecution was weakened because it could not prove that the accused intended to kill Soumya.
A day after the verdict, Dr. Sherley Vasu, who conducted the autopsy on Soumya and is the head of the forensics department at the Government Medical College, Thrissur, claimed that the new prosecution didn’t approach her before arguing the case in the Supreme Court.
A Suresan, the special prosecutor who defended the case in high and lower courts, was not chosen for the SC duty. Only until the Supreme Court requested murder evidence did the new counsel contact Suresan. Though the government claimed to have asked Suresan to help the standing counsel, they did not notify the scope of his work. There were allegations of political pressures that led to a change in the government’s legal team.
G Sumathi, Soumya’s mother, also criticized the administration for not designating Suresan as a special prosecutor. She told reporters, “I was unaware of the government’s choice to replace the prosecutor who presented the case in lower courts.
With the help of scientific evidence, the prosecution charged Thomas with heinous crimes like murder and rape. Soumya fell a few meters away from the track, which proved that someone had thrown her off the moving train. Witness accounts confirmed that Thomas behaved violently inside the train.
Biju Antony Aloor, commonly known as BA Aloor, a Keralite criminal defense lawyer from Mumbai, gained notoriety due to the court procedures. How a minor criminal referred to as a “beggar” could afford such an expensive lawyer like Aloor has been questioned. Aloor has appeared in several high-profile cases and earned several lakhs while representing Thomas.
Aloor revealed that his former clients had asked him to take on Thomas’s case. He then disclosed that a network of criminals from Tamil Nadu with ties to Mumbai’s underworld hired him to represent Thomas, who, up until then, was thought to be a one-handed, mentally unstable beggar.
When Sumathi learned the decision, she sobbed hysterically. My daughter did not get justice, the mother informed reporters.
Did the Supreme Court analyze the evidence incorrectly? Will the trend continue in Gopika’s case a few years later? Are Supreme Court verdicts too meager? They certainly do not have any deterrent effect. Do such judgments fail to satisfy the public consciousness?
