Two days after the Supreme Court dismissed his anticipatory bail, former senior Kerala government pleader P G Manu, who is accused of raping a sexual abuse victim, surrendered before the police on Wednesday. In December last year, the Ernakulam rural police had booked Manu under charges of rape and several sections of the IT Act for allegedly sexually assaulting a survivor in a 2018 rape case who had approached him for help. After the case was registered, the state government had removed him from the post of senior pleader at the high court. Manu had also served as special prosecutor for the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Kochi before he was appointed the government pleader. His anticipatory bail plea was earlier rejected by the high court. According to the police, the complainant and her parents had approached Manu for help in quashing the 2018 case as it had been pending for five years. On October 9, they visited his office. According to the complainant, she was sexually abused three times by the accused – the first two times at his office and then at her house. After the woman filed a police complaint, Manu allegedly tried to dissuade her. In a recorded conversation after the complaint was filed, Manu was purportedly heard pleading with the woman’s family: “I will fall at your feet. Don’t spoil my life. I am going to be included in the judges’ panel. I will come and meet you…” The woman alleged in her complaint that after hearing details of the pending case, Manu asked her parents to step out of his room, bolted his office door from the inside and sexually abused her. He also allegedly warned her that without his help, she might become an accused in the case. According to the complaint, Manu told her parents that she needed counselling and told them to meet him again two days later. When they returned on October 11, he again sexually abused her, the complainant said.
