Kerala - Alappuzha   

Family pleads for release of man from jail

ALAPPUZHA: The family of a Keralite in a Muscat jail for the past nine years, serving a life sentence, has been pleading for his release.

Thankappan Santosh Kumar was arrested on charges of abetting the murder of two Pakistanis in October 1998. The relatives say he is innocent and was trapped.

His mother, Bharathi, 76, lives along with her elder son at Kakkazham, near here. The murder, she says, took place when the Pakistanis were allegedly trying to break into a shop. He was arrested 20 days later and sentenced on December 31 that year.

“We have no idea how long they mean by life sentence. Santosh Kumar is innocent, and we believe him. We have been sending letters to the Sultan of Oman every month, pleading for the release of our son. We have knocked on every possible door in the country. But these have been of no use,” Ms. Bharathi says.

Santosh had been working in Muscat for around eight years at the time of arrest. He was 26 then. Now, the only contact his aged parents have with him are occasional letters and a phone call once in three or four months. “[Santosh] Kumar became the seventh accused in the case solely on the basis of the testimony of the fifth accused, a Kottayam native, who was not on good terms with him,” Ms. Bharathi says. She will continue to write to the authorities asking for her son’s release as long as she is alive.

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Family pleads for release of man from jail

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