P.J. Joseph

Thiruvananthapuram, June 26: The report against the former Kerala minister who resigned on charges of attempted molestation of a co-passenger has become public in spite of the government suppressing it for months.

Inspector-general B. Sandhya’s probe confirms the allegation by former Surya TV newsreader Lekshmi Gopakumar, 55, that P.J. Joseph “outraged her modesty” on the Kingfisher Chennai-Kochi flight on August 3 last year. Joseph’s claim that he was the victim of a political conspiracy was dismissed as an “excuse”.

In her affidavit to the officer, Lekshmi, a grandmother living with her chartered-accountant husband in Chennai, said when the lights were off and the flight was about to take off she felt a slimy, crawl on her breast.

“When I turned my head, I saw a hand shying away, behind me. Seat-belted, I shouted, asking the VIP whether he wasn’t ashamed. I pressed the alarm…he had touched my left breast”.

Joseph, reacting to a local channel running excerpts of the report, said the media was trying to blow up a nine-month-old “one-sided” report. His refrain was the same as it was before he resigned — the woman must have been out of her senses to “term a mere touch as molestation”.

The NGO that made the report public had to struggle to get a copy under the information act, raising questions on the Left regime’s sincerity in sharing information with the public.

Attempts by D.B Binu, who heads the NGO Niyama Sahaya Vedi, to get the report were stonewalled. The documents were handed only after he moved high court.

But his battle isn’t over yet. “Curiously, several pages of the report are missing. I will approach the court again to get a certified (full) copy. That’s my next fight,” Binu said.

Former Congress legislator P.T. Thomas said chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan should explain why the pages were missing.