Justice, lost and found

Express News Service

In March 2021, veteran journalist Shevlin Sebastian encountered VK Thajudheen’s ordeal in a media report. The businessman, who had been living in Doha for over a decade, had come to Kerala in June 2018 for his daughter’s wedding. A month later, when he, along with his family, was on his way to their home in Kadirur in Kannur district, the police stopped their car, accusing him of stealing a necklace.

When Thajudheen’s wife intervened and asked for proof, she was presented a blurry photograph—of 
a middle-aged, balding man fleeing the crime scene on a two-wheeler—obtained from a CCTV. She concurred the thief looked like her husband, confirming the police’s hunch. But before putting him behind bars, they tried to extort money in exchange for Thajudheen keeping his reputation intact. When that did not yield the desired result, they cuffed him. 

Consequently, the businessman spent 54 agonising days in jail before getting acquitted of all (false) charges. Sebastian knew it was a story worth telling. If Thajudheen could be incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit, it could happen to anyone, thus embarking on a journey to locate what’s ailing the system in which innocent people are framed, and what the possible solutions to unlawful arrests could be.

The result? A concise but tell-all, page-turning account, The Stolen Necklace: A Small Crime in a Small Town. The book begins with the nikah of Thajudheen’s daughter. It captures his sentiments as his daughter is about to set foot in a new chapter of her life. He tells her, “…always try to have a loving relationship with everybody. In short, adjust to your husband and get along with your in-laws. If you can achieve that, life will be enjoyable,” completely unaware that it was his life that was about to take an irreversible turn.
Convicted in a case of mistaken identity, his story underlines the problems that ail the system.

The book notes that the police and similar institutes are overwhelmingly corrupt, have a disregard for the law and its instruments, and possess an unwillingness to transform themselves. One wonders if Thajudheen would have been able to take his woes to the masses, triggering an investigation, had it not been for his connections.

What would anyone else, without such resources, have done in a similar situation?

Interestingly, the tale also happens to be a case in point for leveraging social media for getting justice. When the family reached out to Shahul Hameed, personal assistant to MLA TV Ibrahim, the latter shared Thajudheen’s plight on Facebook. “Thajudheen has suffered a loss of respect and a financial loss,” he wrote, adding, “The future of his children is uncertain. This family is on the verge of suicide. They should get justice. We have brought it to the attention of the Chief Minister, the leader of the Opposition, the Human Rights Commission, the Minority Commission and the media. We will be with him till he gets justice.” The post attracted 2,200 likes, 749 comments and 7,000 shares, Sebastian notes. And in an hour, “an online Malayalam channel made a story based on this post and put it up on the web. By evening, four lakh people had viewed it,” the author adds.

Concluding the narrative, which not only deftly connects odd dots throughout the book, but also sheds light on the politics of north Kerala—the rift between the RSS-BJP and the CPI(M) that has led to the death of “over 250” party workers from both sides over the years–– Sebastian notes that while Thajudheen unwaveringly believed that the “truth will emerge one day”, it’s not always enough.

As an immediate solution, he recommends the worldwide adoption of Article 14 of the UN Charter of Human Rights and further makes a case for an NGO like the Innocence Project in the US, which can serve as a tool to help people like Thajudheen seek justice and redressal. But the implementation, much like the compensation Thajudheen has been seeking, remains shrouded in darkness.

<br> In March 2021, veteran journalist Shevlin Sebastian encountered VK Thajudheen’s ordeal in a media report. The businessman, who had been living in Doha for over a decade, had come to Kerala in June 2018 for his daughter’s wedding. A month later, when he, along with his family, was on his way to their home in Kadirur in Kannur district, the police stopped their car, accusing him of stealing a necklace.

When Thajudheen’s wife intervened and asked for proof, she was presented a blurry photograph—of 
a middle-aged, balding man fleeing the crime scene on a two-wheeler—obtained from a CCTV. She concurred the thief looked like her husband, confirming the police’s hunch. But before putting him behind bars, they tried to extort money in exchange for Thajudheen keeping his reputation intact. When that did not yield the desired result, they cuffed him. 

Consequently, the businessman spent 54 agonising days in jail before getting acquitted of all (false) charges. Sebastian knew it was a story worth telling. If Thajudheen could be incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit, it could happen to anyone, thus embarking on a journey to locate what’s ailing the system in which innocent people are framed, and what the possible solutions to unlawful arrests could be.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

VK ThajudheenThe result? A concise but tell-all, page-turning account, The Stolen Necklace: A Small Crime in a Small Town. The book begins with the nikah of Thajudheen’s daughter. It captures his sentiments as his daughter is about to set foot in a new chapter of her life. He tells her, “…always try to have a loving relationship with everybody. In short, adjust to your husband and get along with your in-laws. If you can achieve that, life will be enjoyable,” completely unaware that it was his life that was about to take an irreversible turn.
Convicted in a case of mistaken identity, his story underlines the problems that ail the system.

The book notes that the police and similar institutes are overwhelmingly corrupt, have a disregard for the law and its instruments, and possess an unwillingness to transform themselves. One wonders if Thajudheen would have been able to take his woes to the masses, triggering an investigation, had it not been for his connections.

What would anyone else, without such resources, have done in a similar situation?

Interestingly, the tale also happens to be a case in point for leveraging social media for getting justice. When the family reached out to Shahul Hameed, personal assistant to MLA TV Ibrahim, the latter shared Thajudheen’s plight on Facebook. “Thajudheen has suffered a loss of respect and a financial loss,” he wrote, adding, “The future of his children is uncertain. This family is on the verge of suicide. They should get justice. We have brought it to the attention of the Chief Minister, the leader of the Opposition, the Human Rights Commission, the Minority Commission and the media. We will be with him till he gets justice.” The post attracted 2,200 likes, 749 comments and 7,000 shares, Sebastian notes. And in an hour, “an online Malayalam channel made a story based on this post and put it up on the web. By evening, four lakh people had viewed it,” the author adds.

Concluding the narrative, which not only deftly connects odd dots throughout the book, but also sheds light on the politics of north Kerala—the rift between the RSS-BJP and the CPI(M) that has led to the death of “over 250” party workers from both sides over the years–– Sebastian notes that while Thajudheen unwaveringly believed that the “truth will emerge one day”, it’s not always enough.

As an immediate solution, he recommends the worldwide adoption of Article 14 of the UN Charter of Human Rights and further makes a case for an NGO like the Innocence Project in the US, which can serve as a tool to help people like Thajudheen seek justice and redressal. But the implementation, much like the compensation Thajudheen has been seeking, remains shrouded in darkness.