Kannur DCC general secretary resigns after audio leak
In a release, Mr. Joseph confirmed that Mr. Vijayan's resignation had been accepted. Mr. Vijayan's audio message, reportedly posted in a WhatsApp group of the Sreekandapuram Block Congress leaders and later circulated in the media, has triggered a fresh row for both the Congress and the Youth Congress.
In the recording, Mr. Vijayan is purportedly heard accusing Youth Congress leaders of collecting funds in the name of constructing houses for Wayanad landslide victims and misappropriating the money.
However, soon after the clip went public, Youth Congress State secretary Robert Vellamvelly came out with a rebuttal, laced with sarcasm. He mocked Mr. Vijayan for having 'Perumthachan complex' and 'great intelligence to inform people that he is alive.'
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The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
Govindachamy's escape exposes vulnerabilities of State prisons
Just before heading out for work on Friday morning, E. Vinoj Kumar, a private finance company employee of Kannur, quickly checked the WhatsApp messages on his mobile phone. Govindachamy escaped from the Kannur Central Prison, read a message. The image stopped Vinoj in his tracks. Like many others in Kerala, he vividly remembered the case and the outrage it had triggered. Making a mental note of the message, he hurriedly left for work. A few moments later, while moving along Pamban Madhavan Road, near Talap, he slowed down his vehicle to give way to a speeding bus. Just then, a man walked towards him, partly blocking the road. Something about the man made Vinoj look again. 'He was a lean fellow, wearing a white shirt and black trousers, and had one of his hands pushed under a bundle of cloth that he was carrying on his head,' Vinoj recalls. He sported a beard, unlike the image of the prisoner which was circulated on social media. Yet, something rang in his mind. He shared his doubts about the identity of the man with an autorickshaw driver whom he met on the road. 'I told him that the man looked like Govindachamy. The man walked faster as we approached him,' recollects Vinoj. As the autorickshaw driver attempted to strike up a conversation with the man, he didn't respond. He took to his heels when his name was called out. As he fled the scene, his amputated hand was revealed, which confirmed their suspicion. It was the life convict Govindachamy. Vinoj wasted no time in alerting the police. As the police were searching the area for the convict, M. Unnikrishnan, a government employee, reached his office at Talap for the day's work. 'One of my colleagues had alerted me about the news that the jailbird was last seen in the Talap area. There are a few vacant plots next to our office building, which, I felt, could serve as hiding places for criminals,' Unnikrishnan says. He ventured out to inspect the plots before the police team reached the area. Just to make sure, he threw a casual look into a well located in his office compound. To his shock, he saw Govindachamy trying to remain immersed in the water to escape the police. Ignoring the threats of the criminal, Unnikrishnan raised the alarm. In no time, the police reached the area and pulled the convict out of the well, thus ending the high-voltage prison escape that kept the State in the throes of tension for hours. Though the convict had jumped jail in the early hours of the day, his absence was noticed only a few hours later during the morning roll call. The discovery of a makeshift rope hanging from the outer wall of the jail, which he used for escaping, confirmed the suspicion. P. Nidhinraj, District Police Chief (Kannur City), described the escape as a 'well-planned operation.' Investigation revealed that the outlaw had collected clothes of remand prisoners to make a rope, used the abandoned water drums to scale walls. He had modified his dietary practices to lose weight and squeeze himself through narrow cell door rods. A hacksaw blade is suspected to have been used to cut through the iron bars of his cell in Block 10, reserved for high-risk inmates. The police believe that he slipped out of his cell around 1 a.m. and scaled three walls using the rope and the water drums. After spending around three hours on the jail compound, he is believed to have cleared the outer compound wall by 4.30 a.m. A defunct electric fence made his escape an easy affair, suspect police officers. A senior prison officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the jail staff had ignored the several 'tell-tale signs', including the altered behaviour and appearance of the prisoner, which, if noticed, would have prevented the escape. For one, Govindachamy had begun growing beard, which should have triggered suspicion in the minds of diligent officers. Moreover, his drastic dietary changes and noticeable weight loss also surprisingly went unnoticed, he says. The glaring lapses in the monitoring and surveillance system in the prison did not stop there. The empty drums on the jail premises and the easily accessible loose materials such as cloths, which the convict made use of for scaling the wall, were neither cleared nor flagged, despite routine patrols. Such 'tools' could be hoarded by prisoners looking for an opportune moment to escape, he says. Ashokan Arippa, a former Superintendent of the Kannur Central Prison, blames it on the security lapses and dereliction of duty of the jail officers concerned. 'A better vigilance and monitoring of the prisoners would have averted the incident. Most of the surveillance devices installed in the jail, including the CCTV cameras, were either non-functional or not pressed into service, which helped the convict slip out of the prison unnoticed,' he says. But Govindachamy's escape, observers say, is merely a symptom of a deeper institutional malaise. It has exposed the vulnerabilities of the prison system across the State, they say. The electric fencing at the Kannur Central Prison has been non-functional for nearly three years, a detail Govindachamy and others might have noticed. Only the Viyyur Central Prison and the adjacent High Security Prison at present have operational electric fencing. Many of Kerala's prisons, some built during British rule, are ageing relics in dire need of modernisation, points out a senior functionary of the Prisons department. T.P. Senkumar, former Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services, feels that most of the correctional facilities are unfit to be called prisons. 'Inmates are kept in small, poorly ventilated cells, often without fans. Surviving the summer months is a struggle.' Overcrowding has only worsened the situation. The average occupancy rate in Kerala's prisons is around 135%, higher than the national average of 131%. Official figures show 10,605 inmates are crammed into 57 prisons designed to hold only 7,828. The situation is dire in key facilities, including the central prisons at Poojappura, Viyyur, and Kannur, and the district jails in Ernakulam and Kottayam. The Block 10 at the Kannur Central Prison, in which Govindachamy has been lodged, is meant for solitary confinement. However, the authorities have put two inmates each in the 6 ft x 6 ft cell. The staff strength of the Kerala Prisons and Correctional Services has not grown proportionally to the number of inmates. The force has 2,289 personnel against a sanctioned strength of 2,415. Given the present number of inmates, it would require at least 3,600 employees to ensure effective round-the-clock surveillance and proper administration of jails, according to department officials. To plug the gap, prison authorities have increasingly turned to workers hired on a daily wage basis, a trend former Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services Alexander Jacob warns is fraught with risk. 'Contract workers are not bound by any service rules and are vulnerable to outside influence. This could open the door to corruption and resultant security lapses,' he cautions. Compounding these issues are bureaucratic delays and inadequate funding for the department. Crucial surveillance facilities like CCTV cameras and electric fences lie defunct due to the lack of annual maintenance contracts. Despite repeated reminders, the facilities have not been made operational, say department sources. 'During the 13th Finance Commission, we secured ₹154 crore for the purpose. Since then, no proposals have been submitted, leading to a complete funding drought over the next two Finance Commissions.' Besides the poor infrastructure facilities, political interference too has long plagued Kerala's prison system, say those familiar with the jail system. Senkumar alleges that certain prisons, especially Kannur, are seen as strongholds of some political parties. 'The Kannur Central Prison is effectively under the control of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front. Only politically aligned officers are appointed there. The jail advisory committees, often composed of influential politicians, some with serious criminal charges, exert disproportionate influence on jail governance,' he alleges. Ashokan Arippa concurs: 'Political pressure demoralises staff. Officers work in fear of repercussions.' However, P. Jayarajan, a member of the Kannur Jail Advisory Committee and a State committee member of the CPI(M), dismisses the allegations as politically motivated. 'It's a propaganda of the anti-Left forces and the right-wing media. Let us not forget the escape of 'Ripper' Jayanandan, a death row prisoner, from the Poojappura Central Prison in 2013 when the Congress-led United Democratic Front government was in power,' he counters. He also quickly points out that the advisory panels have no role in the daily affairs of the prison. 'The panel's role is limited to recommending the premature release of convicts.' Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who also holds the Home portfolio, has ordered a special investigation headed by former Kerala High Court Judge C.N. Ramachandran Nair and former State Police Chief Jacob Punnoose. Ramachandran Nair acknowledges the need for prison-specific reforms in the State. 'Each prison has unique shortcomings and issues to address. While overcrowding has remained a persistent issue, the situation has been exacerbated by the rising number of crimes, particularly drug-related offences.' Balram Kumar Upadhyay, Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services, says the demand for establishing more jails and enhancing the infrastructure facilities in existing ones will be examined soon. While the jailbreak has put the jail department in a bad light, it has also served as a wake-up call for the State government to introduce correctional measures in the functioning of the Prisons and Correctional Services of the State.
The Hindu
2 hours ago
- The Hindu
Advocate Vanchinathan appears before Madurai City Cyber Crime police
Madurai High Court advocate S. Vanchinathan appeared before Madurai City Cyber Crime police on Thursday in connection with his complaint seeking probe into alleged 'leaking' of a confidential complaint he had lodged to the Supreme Court against a sitting High Court judge. After filing a written affidavit on his complaint with the police, Mr. Vanchinathan told reporters that he had named two advocates to be interrogated for leaking the scanned copy of his complaint in WhatsApp group of Madurai advocates on July 22 which subsequently went viral in social media. 'My complaint is to probe the issue as to how a confidentially complaint sent to the Apex Court got leaked in the social media. I have pointed out that enquiring the advocate who had shared it first in the WhatsApp group could solve the case. The police need to find out from where the advocate got the scanned copy of the complaint which was sent by registered post to the Supreme Court,' he added. Besides, it would help to find out who were all behind the incident. Stating that the leak of the copy of complaint lodged against a sitting High Court Judge for his actions in violation of the Constitution would pose threat to his life. 'If the complaint sent confidentially to the Supreme Court against a sitting High Court Judge is leaked in public domain, will it not discourge common man and other advocates from lodging similar complaints against sitting High Court Judges,' he asked. He also expressed dissatisfaction over the Cyber Crime police for not having registered the first information report on such a sensitive case.
The Hindu
2 hours ago
- The Hindu
Four arrested in SIM box racket with links to Cambodia
Four individuals of a gang operating an illegal SIM box setup from a rented house in Jannaram mandal in Mancherial were arrested by the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB), in collaboration with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ramagundam police. The operation led to the seizure of equipment used to facilitate cross-border scams routed through domestic mobile networks. The investigation was triggered after the DoT, through its Chakshu portal, flagged suspicious activity linked to impersonation and fraudulent calls originating from the region. Technical inputs provided by the department identified a SIM box device connected to multiple International Mobile Equipment Identitys (IMEI), which allowed internet-based international calls to be disguised as local calls. With just one or two individuals operating them, fraudsters can manage and make a high volume of calls simultaneously, often used in scams involving impersonation, threats, or financial fraud, while evading detection. The arrested individuals were identified as Yandrapu Kamesh, a 24-year-old unemployed polytechnic diploma holder from Parvathipuram, Andhra Pradesh; Bavu Bapaiah, a 43-year-old labourer from Laxmipur in Jagtial district; Bavu Madhukar, Bapaiah's 32-year-old younger brother; and Gotla Rajeshwer, a 40-year-old farmer from Kishtapur village. The group had been working under the remote direction of Polavalsula Sai Krishna, also known as Jack or Raju, who is currently absconding and was allegedly operating from Cambodia. Investigations revealed that Bapaiah had travelled to Cambodia in mid-2024 and reconnected with Sai Krishna, whom he had initially met in Chandigarh while attempting to secure a visa. After returning to India in April 2025, Bapaiah was contacted by Krishna via WhatsApp and asked to arrange a rented house in Jannaram for setting up the SIM box operation. With assistance from his brother-in-law Rajeshwer, the location was secured, and soon after, telecom devices were shipped to Jagitial. Since Bapaiah was not at home, his brother Madhukar received the parcel and placed the equipment in the rented premises. Subsequently, Krishna instructed the brothers to secure a high-speed Airtel broadband connection, which was arranged with the help of a local dealer. Kamesh, who had been approached via Telegram by Krishna and offered a monthly salary of ₹70,000, was brought to Jannaram to oversee the operation. He was responsible for installing the hardware, configuring the SIM panels, and inserting SIMs in batches to evade detection. Krishna also provided Kamesh with ₹3 lakh to purchase over 200 proofless SIM cards from a man named Simhadri in Parvathipuram, with financial transactions facilitated through another associate, Bonu Jayavardhan. The unverified SIMs were delivered in multiple consignments and used in the SIM box to route fraudulent calls. The group managed to establish a decentralised yet technically coordinated setup capable of handling high call volumes. During the raid, officials seized five SIM box devices, over 230 SIM cards, a laptop, four mobile phones, a D-Link router, a modem, and an inverter, all configured for seamless telecom routing. Efforts are now underway to trace Sai Krishna, Bonu Jayavardhan, who helped procure SIM cards; and Simhadri, who supplied the proofless SIMs. Investigators are also probing the role of telecom service providers and internet companies that may have issued SIM cards without proper verification. Financial transactions linked to the operation are being scrutinised to trace the flow of money and identify any connections to larger call centre-based fraud networks.
