(REOPENS DEL96)

The Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman asked why the lone convict, Dharmarajan, who had said that Kurien was also involved in it, did not make any of these claims before any of the three police investigations. "A conspiracy is being hatched against me by some CPI-M activists and some of those, who want to oust me from my present position and they are approaching the accused in the main Suryanelli case and pressuring them to retract their earlier statements...They are trying to tarnish my name and create a cloud of suspicion," he said in a note. The note has been circulated among prominent leaders of various parties including CPI-M's Brinda Karat, who had written to Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari demanding Kurien's resignation. He had sent a similar note carrying arguments in his defence to party President Sonia Gandhi and Ansari. Citing various court orders and technical and documentary evidence, the note says "none of the scandalous, legally baseless allegation, which are flying around in the media questions the established fact of impossibility of Kurien's presence at the alleged scene of crime. "Why he (Dharmarajan) kept silent for so long. He is a convict and an absconding. How all of a sudden he surfaces and puts out my name? He did not make these claims before the trial court or before the High Court when he could have done so. He is a convicted criminal, who is trying to escape law ...The statement by a convict has no evidentiary value," Kurien said. He suspected Dharmarajan is making these claims 17 years after the case "obviously under pressure from some quarters and "he is also now being used as a tool by my adversaries as the girl" He was a CPI (M) activist and a DYFI leader." Dharmarajan, who was charged with taking the girl to several places for 40 days between January and February in 1996 and sentenced to five years by the High Court, recalled that Kurien was spared the identification parade conducted as part of investigations.