Kerala woman''s death: Police say suicide note led to arrests as family defends accused
Raseena, a mother of three, was found dead at her home in Pinarayi village on Tuesday.
According to police, her suicide note suggested she faced public humiliation and distress caused by certain individuals, leading to the arrest of three people.
However, Raseena's mother, Fathima, said on Friday that the arrested persons are relatives who had no role in her daughter's death.
"They are innocent. The real issue is that my daughter was cheated out of her gold and money," she told reporters, adding that the family plans to lodge a complaint against the young man from Mayyil village who used to visit Raseena regularly.
"She had around 40 sovereigns of gold when she got married, but now there's nothing left. She had also borrowed money from many people. We believe that man took everything. Her husband is a respectable man and knew nothing about it," Fathima said.
Meanwhile, police confirmed that the suicide note suggested a state of emotional breakdown.
They allege that some people intimidated and defamed Raseena, even forcibly taking devices, including a mobile phone, from her friend. "She wrote that she was in a situation where she could no longer live," a police officer told reporters.
Devices were recovered from those who had a role that allegedly led to her suicide, police said. All those involved in the alleged mob trial were questioned in detail, they said.
Police added that Raseena's friend, identified as Rahees, will also be questioned to understand the full picture.
Following a note recovered from the scene, police had arrested three workers of the Social Democratic Party of India , a political offshoot of the banned Islamist outfit Popular Front of India , in connection with the case.
The arrested were identified as V C Mubsheer , K A Faisal , and V K Rafnas all residents of the same area.
Police said the group allegedly questioned Raseena and her friend near a mosque, later assaulting the man and detaining him for several hours.
They allegedly took away his mobile phone and tablet and summoned family members to an SDPI office before releasing him late at night.
Responding to the suicide of the woman, a mother of three, following the alleged moral policing incident, senior CPI leader and All India Democratic Women's Association national president P K Sreemathi said what happened in that village was "Talibanism."
"It is the mindset of certain people who believe that a Muslim woman should not speak to a man who is not her husband, and it was this Taliban-like mentality that led to the young woman's suicide," Sreemathi told a news channel.
"This is not just extremism it is beyond extremism, it is sheer terror. Such terrifying acts and extremist activities must be ended," she said.
Sreemathi said this cannot be allowed to continue on Kerala's soil.
"The people of Kerala will face this head-on. This must be uprooted. We must confront this with full strength," she said.
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If the violence spread, there would be massacres, so I went to see what could be done,' Mukherjee said in the interview. He then described scenes of looting and arson, of himself taking on rioters with a sword, and of brickbatting. Mukherjee said that he had told some of his Muslim friends that they had been living as neighbours for years and should not be rioting. But when he failed to stop the violence, he decided to fight back. 'I realised we had to save the country. If the whole area went to Pakistan, there would be more torture and bloodshed,' he told Whitehead. He said that he instructed his boys to retaliate ferociously. 'If you come to know of one murder, you should commit 10 murders, that was my order to my boys,' Mukherjee said. Mukherjee said that he and his boys had used whatever weapons they could lay their hands on – knives, sticks, rods, and guns. They had been stocking up on some weapons over the last few years, he said. 'I had two American pistols. We got some weapons during the 1942 movement. Then during the Second World War, the American army…were in Calcutta. If you gave them Rs 250 or a bottle of whisky, they would give you a pistol and a hundred cartridges. That way we secured all these weapons, and we used them during the troubles,' Whitehead wrote in an account of his conversation with Mukherjee, which was published in The Indian Express at the time. In his interview to Whitehead, Mukherjee did not give a count of the number of people he or 'his boys' had killed during that period. But he claimed that he had ensured that his group attacked only the attackers, and not any ordinary Muslims on the roads. He also gave strict orders to his boys to not misbehave with Muslim women, Mukherjee told Whitehead. Shantanu Mukherjee told The Indian Express that his grandfather 'came from a revolutionary background and was inspired by the life and work of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. He was part of the Atma Unnati Samiti (Self Development Association) which was one of the revolutionary nationalist groups in Bengal like Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar'. Gopal Mukherjee, Shantanu Mukherjee said, 'attacked only those members of the Muslim League who were spreading violence. He did not attack anyone from their families, women, children or the elderly… Had he not attacked the rioters from the Muslim League, this (Kolkata) would have been Bangladesh. The whole map of India would have been different.' Asked by Whitehead during the interview if he felt proud of his actions in 1946, Gopal Mukherjee said: 'It was not about pride. It was about duty. I believed that I had a duty to help people in distress.' Was there any connection between Mukherjee and the Indian National Movement? A year after the Great Calcutta Killing, Mahatma Gandhi visited Calcutta and appealed to people to surrender their arms. Mukherjee told Whitehead that several of the rioters surrendered their weapons, but he refused to meet Gandhi despite being called twice. He finally allowed himself to be persuaded by some local Congress leaders after he was called for a third time, but he still refused to surrender his weapons to Gandhi. 'I went there. I saw people coming and depositing weapons which were of no use to anyone – out-of-order pistols, that sort of thing,' Whitehead quoted Mukherjee as having told him. 'Then Gandhi's secretary said to me: 'Gopal, why don't you surrender your arms to Gandhiji?' I replied, 'With these arms I saved the women of my area, I saved the people. I will not surrender them.'' Whitehead wrote that Mukherjee had told him that he told the people around Gandhi: 'Where was Gandhiji, I said, during the Great Calcutta Killing? Where was he then? Even if I've used a nail to kill someone, I won't surrender even that nail.' Shantanu Mukherjee said his grandfather had established a revolutionary organisation called Bharatiya Jatiya Bahini, and had participated in the Quit India Movement. 'Due to some difference of opinion he had stopped working for the nationalist cause for a while after the Quit India Movement. His organisation resumed their activities in 1946,' he said. Ray and Das wrote in their book that following the riots of 1946, Mukherjee and his associates were pushed into a life of crime and lawlessness. They received liberal financial help from prosperous Calcutta Hindus during the riots, and were hailed as saviours. After the situation returned to normal, however, they were ostracised and looked at with contempt. 'This probably induced Gopal Mukherjee and his followers to take recourse to organized 'crime' as a means of livelihood. Their involvement with 'lawless acts' now ranged from armed dacoities like the Sonarpur Dacoity case and the Guinea Mansion Dacoity case, to armed hold-ups, house burglaries, smuggling, petty snatching and thefts,' Ray and Das wrote.
