This story is all the more noteworthy in light of past coverage, which has also shown that the assailants, whom politically correct dogma would cast as part of a Tiny Minority of Extremists, are not isolated and did not come up in a vacuum. Rather, they have considerable support in the community. One attacker even won a local election from jail.
And these developments come after Professor Joseph himself was removed from his job in addition to being attacked, all for an innocent test question on punctuation.
Those who would deny Professor Joseph justice are being enabled on all sides. “Prof attack: Police official questioned,” by V.L. Jayaraj for the The Pioneer, November 13 (thanks to GS):
In an interesting development in the probe into the Taliban-model Islamist attack on Prof TJ Joseph of Muvattupuzha, the newly constituted Internal Security Investigation Team (ISIT) of the Kerala Police on Wednesday questioned a police official, who was suspected to have destroyed crucial evidences.
The ISIT questioned MA Muhammad, Sub-Inspector at the Oonnukallu police station in Kothamangalam, on the basis of a report of the Intelligence wing of the Kerala Police that he had caused the loss of crucial evidences unearthed from the residence of Yunus, one of the key accused in the case.
Islamists belonging to the Popular Front of India (PFI) had cut off the right hand of Prof Joseph on July 4 for preparing a question paper which allegedly blasphemed Prophet Muhammad. Joseph, a Malayalam professor at Thodupuzha’s Newman College, was later suspended from service by the Catholic college management.
According to the Intelligence report, Muhammad had not handled the CDs and other materials seized during a raid at the house of Yunus at Nellimattam, Kothamangalam, with the required seriousness. It is also said that he had advised the policemen who had recovered the materials during the raid not to consider them seriously.
It Muhammad was in charge of the investigation into the charge against Yunus that he had organized mobile SIM cards used in the coordination of the attack on the professor using false documents. The Intelligence wing is said to have found hat the SI had caused lapses in this probe also.
The investigation team headed by PN Unnirajan, Superintendent of Police, Crime Branch, had arrested Yunus on July 21 from Palakkad while he was returning to Kerala from Nagoor in Tamil Nadu. Yunus was the president of the Nellimattam unit of the Popular Front and member of the outfit’s Ernakulam district committee.
The ISIT, which had taken over the probe into PFI-related aspects of the case of the attack on the professor in September, questioned the police inspector by calling him to its office in Kochi. Allegations of efforts by certain police personnel to derail the investigations into the case were there from the very early stages.