The principal district and sessions court in Thiruvananthapuram will deliver a crucial verdict on Wednesday regarding the anticipatory bail application of 36-year-old Congress MLA Rahul Mamkootathil from Palakkad, who stands accused of rape, criminal intimidation, and coercing a female acquaintance into undergoing an abortion, charges that carry the potential to irreparably damage both his legislative career and the Congress party’s standing in Kerala ahead of future elections.
Since the Thiruvananthapuram cyber police formally registered the case last Thursday under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the IT Act, the MLA has successfully evaded arrest, triggering a multi-state manhunt that has seen police teams dispatched to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka after unverified intelligence suggested he crossed state lines within hours of the FIR being filed.
Investigators have grown increasingly convinced that Rahul Mamkootathil is receiving sophisticated logistical and political support from sympathetic quarters, enabling him to move undetected from Palakkad to Tamil Nadu and subsequently to a secluded farmhouse near Hosur, which police raided only to find he had departed minutes earlier, prompting authorities to announce that anyone found sheltering or assisting the absconding legislator will face separate criminal charges.
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The prosecution is preparing to present compelling medical documentation confirming the complainant suffered severe haemorrhaging from an unsupervised termination of pregnancy allegedly carried out under duress, alongside photographs depicting physical injuries and a series of incriminating WhatsApp exchanges that purportedly reveal the MLA pressuring the woman to end the pregnancy, material expected to form the backbone of their opposition to bail.
With both sides having requested an in-camera hearing to protect the complainant’s identity and sensitive evidence already submitted by the defence in sealed covers on two previous occasions, Wednesday’s ruling will determine whether Rahul Mamkootathil remains at large under judicial protection or is immediately taken into custody, marking a defining moment in one of Kerala’s most explosive political scandals in recent years.
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