TRIVANDRUM, 30 October 2004 — Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy yesterday rejected demands to drop Industries Minister P.K. Kunhalikutty from the Cabinet after a 23-year-old Muslim woman accused him of having sex with her three times when she was a minor and bribed her into retracting her charges before a magistrate.

The opposition has demanded Kunhalikutty’s resignation and prosecution while women’s right activists took out marches and burned his effigy here.

The woman, Rejina, first appeared on a television channel headed by Works Minister M.K. Muneer, Kunhalikutty’s junior colleague in his Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), on Thursday evening. All major television channels and newspapers carried the story prominently.

Rejina said the minister had sexually assaulted her three times in 1996 when she was only 16. Kunhalikutty was then a member of A.K. Antony’s Cabinet.

She said her family received 250,000 rupees from his close relative Rauf to retract her statements before the police and a magistrate and continued to receive hush money. She walked out on her family now to “speak out the truth”. She has been offered protection by Anweshi Women’s Counseling Center headed by ex-Maoist K. Ajitha. The previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government investigated the case on the basis of Ajitha’s memorandum to then Chief Minister E.K. Nayanar in 1997.

She demanded reinvestigation naming Kunhalikutty as the prime defendant. But Chief Minister Chandy rejected the demand, saying the case was already investigated properly and was in court.

Pro-Marxist All India Democratic Women’s Association President Brinda Karat said AIDWA will also launch a state-wide agitation to press for Kunhalikutty’s resignation. “If he does not resign, it’s up to the chief minister to drop him,” she said in New Delhi.

According to Rejina, she was taken to the minister by Sreedevi, who was running an ice-cream parlor in Calicut. “I first met him at a palatial house in Shornur. He came in a white car with red light on top. I had to spend that night with his driver, too,” she said.

Later, Sreedevi took her to Trivandrum and Calicut at the minister’s instance.

When the scandal erupted, she went into hiding. Later, she deposed before Calicut City Police Commissioner Neera Rawat who was investigating the case.

“I was approached by Rauf through my lover Prasad whom I met at Sreedevi’s parlor. I retracted the statement and gave a new statement saying Kunhalikutty had nothing to do with the case. We went to Ernakulam and stayed in big hotels,’’ she said.

Until Wednesday, she has been staying in rented houses provided by Rauf and others. “We changed many houses. Rauf used to give me 4,000 rupees a month,” she said.

Four other victims were also under the protection of Rauf and his gang, she said.

Kunhalikutty, who is currently abroad, told local media by telephone from Bombay that he had never met Rejina. “There is every reason to suspect that she has done it under someone’s instigation,” he said.