Kannur jailbreak: Convict Govindachamy planned for a month; 4 officials suspended

Kannur, July 25 Soon after the Kerala Police arrested convict Govindachamy after he escaped from Kannur Central Jail, a top police officer said he had been planning this jailbreak for over a month.

Four jail officials of the high-security Kannur jail have been suspended for a serious lapse.

Kerala Jail DGP Balramkumar Upadhaya said a probe has been launched, and as the first step, four jail officials have been suspended. Surprisingly, this major lapse occurred on a day when Upadhaya had convened a special meeting on Friday.

Meanwhile, a top Kannur police officer said that preliminary information received indicated that Govindachamy had been planning this for the past 20 days.

“From his possession, we have recovered some tools which he has used. A detailed probe has to take place to find out other things,” said the top police official.

After his arrest, the police took him for a medical check-up, and later he will be produced before a local court.

Slamming the government for the security lapse, Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan said this is a shame for the CM Vijayan government.

“This jail is a free-for-all. A section of the inmates have huge benefits, they get food from outside, and they have with them the latest mobile phones. Just imagine the number of items this convict had with him, which included numerous bed sheets, tools to cut open things. It defies logic that a one-handed jailbird can scale this big wall,” said Satheesan.

Govindachamy was found hiding in a well after he escaped from the high-security Kannur prison around 1.15 a.m.

It was with great difficulty that the police officials pulled him out of the well, located on the premises of a house that was closed and overgrown with bushes.

Angry locals, who were helping the police to pull him out, were seen slapping him too.

According to the police, they received an alert about a man hiding at a closed residential place near the jail in Kannur, from where he had escaped.

The arrest took place around 10.30 a.m., about nine hours after he escaped. A sniffer dog also helped in making the arrest. The dog had travelled around 2 km from the jail towards the place where he was arrested.

Two persons, who had recognised the fleeing Govindachamy, as he had only one hand, alerted the police. They acted swiftly and took him into custody.

In a major security lapse, Govindachamy escaped from the high-security Kannur prison around 1.15 a.m. on Friday. This major lapse came to the notice of the jail authorities around 5 a.m. and was reported to the local Kannur police after two hours. Reports said that at the time of the jailbreak, the power was switched off. As per reports, at the time of dawn, a long rope made of clothes was seen hanging from the jail compound wall, which is more than 25 feet high.

The people were baffled about how a one-handed person could scale the wall, which also has an electric fence.

The Kannur jail is a special high-security prison comprising 68 cells, and it was from one of these cells that the criminal managed to escape.

Govindachamy was sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman.

The Kerala High Court in December 2013 had upheld a fast-track court’s decision that Govindachamy had robbed and pushed 23-year-old Soumya, a native of Shoranur, off the Ernakulam-Shoranur passenger train on February 1, 2011. She was raped and brutally thrashed. Soumya was found by the Railway Police near a track. She succumbed to her injuries at the Government Medical College in Thrissur on February 6, 2011. At that time, Govindachamy had already been convicted in eight cases in his native state, Tamil Nadu.

The fast-track court in 2012 awarded a death sentence to the accused, considering him a habitual offender and holding that the brutal rape was one of the reasons for the victim’s death and that the nature of the crime was so savage that it shocked society. The HC upheld the death sentence two years later, against which he moved the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court in 2016 commuted the death sentence of Govindachamy to a seven-year jail term after dropping the murder charge against him, but the life sentence was upheld.

Soumya’s mother first expressed huge disappointment at the jail escape. “How could this happen at a high-security jail with all CCTV protocols. This means he has got help from some quarters, and this is depressing,” she said.

After she got the news that he had been arrested, she broke down and asked why this man was allowed to live after he took away the life of her daughter. “Fail to understand why the apex court acted like this,” said Soumya’s mother.

Ashraf, the police man who captured the dreaded criminal in 2011, said he always feared that this habitual offender would jump out of jail.

Former state BJP president K. Surendran launched a scathing attack on the government and the police. He said the criminal did not jump out of jail, "but the escape was facilitated".

“There is a big conspiracy, as the one-handed Govindachamy has been allowed to escape. The Kannur jail is governed by a jail committee, including top CPI(M) leaders like P. Jayarajan,” said Surendran.

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