Former Kannur district panchayat president PP Divya was remanded for two weeks by the Taliparamba Magistrate on Tuesday in the ADM K Naveen Babu suicide case and transferred to Pallikkunnu women’s prison. She is expected to file for bail today in Thalassery Principal Sessions Court.
Kannur: The Taliparamba Magistrate court ordered former Kannur district panchayat president PP Divya to be held in custody for two weeks in connection with the ADM K Naveen Babu suicide case on Tuesday (Oct 29). She has been sent to the women's prison in Pallikkunnu. Outside the magistrate’s residence, Youth Congress, Youth League, and Yuva Morcha activists held demonstrations, leading to a confrontation between the police and protesters who arrived with black flags.
Meanwhile, PP Divya is set to file a bail application today in the Thalassery Principal Sessions Court. Naveen Babu’s family plans to oppose the bail plea. Additionally, the Kannur District Secretariat is scheduled to meet today, where a decision regarding possible disciplinary action against Divya may be reached.
Following the court's denial of anticipatory bail, citing multiple lapses, PP Divya dramatically surrendered to the police within hours. The magistrate has remanded her for two weeks, with her remand period lasting until November 12. Divya was transferred from the magistrate's residence in Taliparamba to jail under tight police security.
The court confirmed the serious allegations against PP Divya in rejecting her anticipatory bail plea on Tuesday. The Thalassery Sessions Court presided over by Judge KT Nisar Ahmad, dismissed Divya’s claims that she attended ADM Naveen Babu’s farewell gathering by invitation. The judge noted that her argument of merely taking a public stand against corruption and sharing the event's video to spread awareness did not hold. The court observed that Divya arrived at the private function, reportedly uninvited, with a videographer, seemingly intending to record and circulate the footage to publicly humiliate Naveen in front of his superiors and colleagues. This act, the court concluded, appeared to be a deliberate effort to defame Naveen, which explains why the video was even circulated in his native district, Pathanamthitta.
The court found that PP Divya failed to provide any evidence supporting TV Prashanth’s corruption allegations against ADM Naveen Babu regarding the petrol pump application.
Divya argued that her speech was not intended to push anyone toward suicide and, therefore, did not constitute abetment. However, the court dismissed this claim, pointing out that both the speech and the subsequent events within hours led to Naveen’s suicide, thus supporting the charge of abetment.
Kannur ADM death case: P P Divya surrenders before police after court rejects anticipatory bail plea