Man attacks High Court judge’s car for delay in hearing case

Mangalore Today News Network / Yahoo

Kochi, Feb 04, 2021:     Black oil was poured on the car of a Kerala High Court judge while she was on her way to work on Wednesday. The judge, Justice V Shircy, was inside the car when the attack took place near the main entrance of the Kerala High Court in Kochi. According to reports, the accused has been identified as Raghunathan Nair of Erumeli, a town in the south-east part of Kottayam. He was holding a protest outside the High Court with a placard on the court’s delay in taking up the case of the missing college student Jasna Maria James.

 

Attack on the official vehicle of Kerala High Court judge :

A man threw oil at the vehicle in which Justice V Shircy was traveling today morning at the entrance of the High Court. Police has taken the attacker into custody. pic.twitter.com/GgUC5sxEyC

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) February 3, 2021

The accused was nabbed by the judge’s security officer and handed over to the police.

According to reports, the protester was agitated over the delay in disposing of a habeas corpus petition regarding the missing case of Jasna. Jasna is a second-year B com student from Pathanamthitta who went missing three years ago, in March 2018.

According to reports which quoted police sources, the accused man was part of an action council seeking justice for Jasna, and had been waiting near a shop close to the High Court entrance. When the SUV turned up, he suddenly came and poured motor oil over the car. He was also holding a placard seeking justice for the missing student.

Following the attack, the registrar of the Kerala High Court as well as senior police officials visited the scene. The accused is in police custody.

Jasna, a second-year degree student at St Thomas College Kanjirappally, had left home on the morning of March 22, 2018. Living at Vechuchira, Mukkuttuthara near Erumeli in the district, she was last seen by local people at the Mukkuttuthara bus stop. According to relatives, she had called up her aunt who is living at Punchavayal to inform her that she was coming to her place. She was on study leave and preparing for her exam to be held on April 3.

“She told her aunt that she was not able to study sitting at home. She got down from the bus at Mukkuttuthara and might have been on her way to Punchavayal. But nothing is clear so far. Nobody knows what happened after that, even the police are clueless,” the now 22-year-old’s brother had told TNM in March 2018, when she went missing.

Despite the case being handed over to the Crime Branch, three years on, there are still no leads to Jasna’s whereabouts. In January 2021, a habeas corpus was filed in the Kerala High Court to find the missing girl.