Kochi: Rahul Pashupalan of the ‘Kiss of Love’ fame, who is out on bail after he was arrested for alleged child-trafficking, has denied the allegations against him. He claimed that the police had taken him into custody from his flat in Kochi, not from a hotel at Nedumbassery. “Why the police could not firm up a charge-sheet against me even after 14 months,” he asks. Rahul, who got bail from the Karnataka High Court the other day, spoke to DC over phone from Kollam, his native place. He has no plans to settle scores but wants to legally fight it out, he said.
“I have no idea why they framed me and Reshmi in this case. The only reason I see is our involvement in the Kiss of Love campaign. We are confident that we can disprove the allegations levelled against us before the court of law,” he said. “I was active on Facebook and was talking to my friends on phone at my flat on the day we were arrested. I can prove that with the tower locations and the Facebook chats I had,” he recalled the events of the day. “Karnataka police charge-sheeted us on the 89th day of arrest. But nowhere in the charge sheet the cops mentioned the offence we had committed. We were mentioned as conspirators but not even telephone records were produced against us to implicate us in the crime,” he said.
Referring to the charge-sheet and the contentions of Reshmi in her bail applications, the Karnataka High Court observed: “Reshmi, however, was not involved in the trafficking of two girls from place to place. It is evident that she was in some way involved in some other programme known as ‘Kiss of Love’ in respect of which, there were investigations and she has been arraigned as accused no.4.” The police had claimed that they had arrested first accused Abdul Khader alias Akbar, Bangalore-based broker Lineesh Mathew and two girls on November 18 but two persons had escaped. Rahul clarified, “if I have connection with the whole group or that crime, the escaped people should have contacted me and I would have saved myself.”
