Chacko, the mastermind shouldn’t have been acquitted: Kevin’s father

Kottayam: “I wouldn’t have cared if anyone else was let free by the court, but not Chacko John. He is the mastermind. He shouldn’t have been acquitted,” said Joseph Jacob, Kevin’s father with disappointment after a principal sessions court decided to let Neenu’s father go free for want of evidence even as it found 10 persons guilty of murder and abduction of his son.

Jacob said he will legally proceed after consultation with the government. “I will also wait for the pronouncement of the judgment. That is the main thing,” he added. Though Jacob has been closely following the probe and regularly attending the trial, the 57-year-old was not present in court when principal sessions judge C Jayachandran pronounced the verdict in the state’s first honour killing case.

Jacob, along with wife Mary and daughter Kripa, remained at home watching television to get the latest update on the court proceedings. Kripa had recently got a temporary job in Kottayam Medical College Hospital.

Jacob has been running a two-wheeler workshop alone from a small room in the busy Chavittuvari Junction for the past three decades. The family has been staying in a rented house hardly a kilometre from the shop. On Thursday, the shop remained closed.

Ever since Kevin’s death, his fiancée Neenu has been staying with Kevin’s family and Jacob has been taking care of her like his own daughter. “Please leave her (Neenu) alone,” he said, when asked about Neenu.

He said Neenu had requested him not to disclose her whereabouts for the time being. After completing her graduation at KE College in Mannanam, she has been pursuing her higher studies at an institute in Karnataka. “She calls me over the phone every day. She has been constantly following the trial in the media,” said Jacob.

“Several students from Kerala are studying at the institute where she studies and she does not want to reveal her identity to them,” said Jacob. It was Jacob who persuaded Neenu to continue studies after Kevin’s death and had accompanied her on the first day of her return to the college in Mannanam.

“Both of us have never discussed about her future. Let her do the way she prefers,” said Jacob who has hardly smiled ever since his son’s death.