Supercop’s image often shiny, twice clouded

For nearly three decades, he was held in high regard as an honest and efficient IPS officer. But former Kerala DGP (fire and rescue services) Siby Mathews, now the state's chief information commissioner, finds his reputation at stake for a second time. The first time was for the bungling of the ISRO spy case of 1994; this time he has come in the firing line for the way he handled the Suryanelli rape probe.

The latter case involves a schoolgirl who was lured away from her home in Suryanelli in January 1996 and raped for 40 days by several men at various places in Kerala. The lone person convicted, S S Dharmarajan, as well as the victim's father have alleged that Mathews, then a DIG, had pressured them not to reveal the name of P J Kurien, Rajya Sabha deputy chairman. The father has alleged that Mathews, as head of the investigation team, had pledged that all involved would be convicted if Kurien's name was not revealed. Even retired SP K K Joshwa, who had been with Mathews in probing the ISRO spy scandal, the Suryanelli rape and the Kalluvathukal hooch tragedy, has turned against his former boss. Mathews has rejected the allegation and pointed out that two other teams, which probed the rape before and after his team did, had given a clean chit to Kurien.

The ISRO spy probe had turned out to be false, but by then it had ruined the professional and personal lives of two space scientists and others. The case had been given to Mathews, then a DIG, because of his image of "an honest detective who does not succumb to pressure". The CBI found the case had been fabricated, and that Mathews had ordered the arrest of the scientists without a thorough probe. The CBI blamed the IPS officer for allowing rumours to circulate in the media and recommended action against him in 1996, but the Oommen Chandy government rejected its advice in 2011.

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