Achuthanandan demands removal of CBI officer

Kerala's leader of opposition V.S. Achuthanandan Thursday demanded the removal of a CBI official investigating the attack on a school teacher in the state as he is a former student of the institution.

The school is owned by veteran UDF leader R. Balakrishna Pillai. The school teacher Krishna Kumar who teaches at the school near Kottarakara, 70 km from here, was brutally attacked by unidentified people in September 2011.

Kumar was not in the good books of Pillai for a long time, he alleged. Achuthanandan had launched a huge campaign against Pillai and alleged that this incident could not have taken place without the knowledge of Pillai and his minister son K.B. Ganesh Kumar.

"It's rather strange that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has posted an officer who hails from the place where the school is located, is not only known to Pillai but is also a former student of the same school (this) raises suspicion," said Achuthanandan in a statement to the press issued here.

"Hence, the CBI should see that this official is removed and a new person be posted to investigate the case," he said.

Pillai's party Kerala Congress (Pillai) is an ally of the Congress-led ruling government.

The first theory circulated was that Kumar's rectum was pierced with an iron rod, his genitals crushed and his hips smashed.

However, a medical board report concluded that Kumar's injuries might have been caused due to a vehicle accident and that his rectum was not pierced by a rod, nor were his genitals crushed.

At that time, Pillai was serving a jail term in a corruption case that was pursued by Achuthanandan for close to two decades.