Kerala mother accused of son's sexual abuse gets bail, court orders SIT probe

The Kerala high court on Friday granted bail to a mother who was arrested under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso) two weeks ago for alleged sexual abuse of her minor son.

The court has directed the government to constitute a special investigation team (SIT) under a senior woman police officer and inform it about the progress of the probe. It also instructed authorities to get the mental health of the child examined by an expert committee. Earlier, the government had opposed the accused mother's bail plea saying crucial evidence was found on her mobile phone and she gave the boy steroids.

The 36-year-old woman, hailing from Kollam district, was arrested and remanded to judicial custody after her husband and son filed a complaint two weeks back. The case got wide publicity as it was the first time in the state that a mother was arrested under Pocso charges, that too, for exploiting her own child.

But after her arrest, the youngest son told the media that his brother was tutored under threat to lay such a charge and that their father, who married another woman without divorcing his mother, used to physically assault them regularly.

The woman’s family later alleged that the police made undue haste in arresting her and a proper investigation was not carried out. The State Women Commission and the Child Welfare Commission had also criticised her arrest.

Relatives later claimed that the mother was falsely implicated after she sent her husband a notice for alimony and threatened to move the court against his practice of bigamy. They said the couple were estranged for the last three years and the husband forcibly took his three children to a West Asian country, where he was working.

The father had claimed that the mother was exploiting the son for quite some time and the boy revealed his alleged ordeal to a psychiatrist in the Gulf. He later approached the Child Welfare Commission, which forwarded his complaint to the police. When the case snowballed into a controversy, the police put the blame on the commission. However, commission member N Sunanda said police were requested to probe the matter and weren't told to arrest the mother.