A WAKE-UP CALL FOR KERALA POLICE

The jailbreak of a notorious rape convict from a maximum security prison is a serious indictment of the force's competence

- BY MANOJ NAIR | Business Editor

Something is terribly wrong with Kerala Police. There's no other way to put it.

Letting a notorious prisoner such as Govindachamy — serving life imprisonment for the rape and murder of Soumya while on a train ride in 2011 — escape from prison can only be put down to sheer incompetence on the part of the Kerala Police and the prison system that they run.

What's worse is that Govindachamy managed to break out of what's supposed to be a maximum security Kannur prison. Sure, the alert has been sounded and all of the resources available to the state's police were put into action to nab the offender.

Thankfully, Govindachamy's time out in the open didn't last long. But to think that such a violent criminal was free — even briefly — roaming somewhere in Kerala, outside the walls of his cell, is simply unacceptable.