Kochi: Roy Vayalat, the main accused in the hotel No 18 POCSO case, surrendered before the police on Sunday. He surrendered at the office of the Kochi police commissioner. The Supreme Court had on Friday rejected his anticipatory bail plea.
The police had registered a case against him for harassing a minor girl physically during a DJ party.
More girls have approached police in Kochi to lodge unsavoury experiences at No. 18 Hotel, whose owners Roy Vayalat and Saiju Thankachan are booked along with Kozhikode woman Anjali Rimadevi in connection with the molestation of minors at the hotel. All three have been charged under POCSO.
Anjali owns a business unit in Kozhikode and according to versions of victims showing up lately, she looked out for minor daughters of her staff who might have modelling or acting interests.
Fully trusted by the parents, Anjali would then fetch these minors promising the parents to find them the break they needed in their modelling career. Once in Kochi, she drove the girls straight to drug parties in full swing at No. 18 Hotel and subsequently were subject to inappropriate assaults. Among the victims, the parent of one gave testimony instead of the girl, owing to the trauma the victim was still undergoing following encounters with the accused men at the hotel.
Police stumbled upon molestation cases while investigating the deaths of beauty pageant winners Ansi Kabeer and Anjana Shajan, who were killed in a car crash on 31 October, after the accused Saiju tailed their vehicle in a high-speed chase. Saiju also has a history of cases in drug deals pending against him.
The POCSO case revolves around a complaint lodged by a minor girl and her mother, both of who are Kozhikode natives. They were sexually molested and visuals captured on mobile, they said in the complaint. Anjali threatened to disseminate the visuals on social media, if they ever spoke to police on what happened at the hotel, said the victims further.
The sexual assault reportedly took place a couple of months before the fatal car crash incident that killed Miss Kerala 2019, Ansi Kabeer and runner-up Anjana.