June 15, 2019
Kochi: Pradeesh Kumar, just 25 years old, recently saw his dreams of hitting a century shattered, not in cricket, but in seducing housewives. Police put the brakes on the fulfillment when he was trapped in their net in Kottayam.
It was the sheer guts shown by one of his victims that helped police to expose his criminal hobby and arrest him by a team headed by district police chief Harishankar.
He had trapped 68 housewives and targeted 100 before 2021.
Women having minor problems with their husbands were his target. He would make acquaintance with them and gather details of their problems, according to the police.
He would make the problem more complicated by generating morphed images and fake chats of their husbands to make the women believe that their partners were cheating on them.
The women would then get intimate to him.
He would also create morphed photos of the women to blackmail them for his benefits.
The matter surfaced when a daring woman came forward to file a case against him which also ended his bid to pursue his dreams.
This is just one of the countless sexual crimes taking place in the country’s most literate state. Reports appear daily of women falling prey to such criminals and yet the trend continues.
According to statistics released by Kerala police, crime against women kept varying. During 2007 to 2018, it dipped and surged constantly. The situation was worst in the last three years. It was highest was in 2016 at 15,114 cases, dropping to 14,263 in 2017 and to 13,736 in 2018.
The figure in 2016 was a surge by over 61 per cent of 9,381 recorded in 2007.
It was 9,706 in 2008 but fell slightly to 9,354 the next year, only to rise steeply to 10,781 in 2010 and then to 13,279 in 2011. It dropped to 13,002 in 2012, rose to 13,738 in 2013 and fell to 12,485 in 2015.
Senior psychiatrist Dr Sumesh of Thrissur told The Covai Post that such things were not confined to a particular state like Kerala.
It happens every where in the country. One of the reasons that drives males go immoral is personality disorder. Women who fall prey to such moves are stressed out due to various reasons from the husband’s side. These could be alcoholism or inability to meet the requirements of their biological requirements. Social media has also its share in the episode, he adds.