NewsX: Another big twist has emerged in the Suryanelli rape case reportedly involving Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien. Prime accused Dharmarajan, who had initially implicated Kurien in the scandal has retracted his statement.

Blaming a local journalist to whom he had given an interview of prompting him to implicate Kurien, Dharmarajan told a sessions court in Kerala on Wednesday that he was drunk at the time of the interview and was financially not doing well.

The scandal has its source at Suryanelli in Idukki district in 1996, when a 16-year-old girl was confined and sexually assaulted for 45 days by 42 men.
The girl's petition challenging the dismissal of her earlier petition seeking inclusion of Kurien's involvement in the case rested on Dharamarajan's statement to the television channel.

Even as the retraction by Dharmarajan, the lone convict in the nearly two-decade-old scandal, has come as a relief to the Kurien camp, his office seems to be guarded in its approach. When Newsx contacted Kurien's office, the reponse received was evasive and I quote " The convict (Dharmarajan) has been telling a bunch of lies. Now he is retracting. This does not deserve a response from Kurien.