Kotak Mahindra Bank in Kerala fires employee for caustic Facebook rant justifying Kathua rape and murder

Kotak Mahindra Bank in Kerala on Friday fired an employee for sharing a post on Facebook which justified the gangrape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua.

“It is good that she (the rape victim) was killed now. Otherwise, she would have come as a bomb against India,” The Indian Express quoted the employee Vishnu Nandakumar as saying.

Nandakumar, an assistant manager with the bank’s Kochi branch, reportedly deactivated his Facebook page after he faced backlash for his insensitive remark.

In a Facebook post, Kotak Mahindra Bank said it had terminated Nandakumar from the services of the bank due to “poor performance”.

Hindustan Times reported that Nandakumar claimed to be a relative of BJP’s Kerala state general secretary AN Radhakrishnan. After he posted his message, people on social media started a hashtag campaign “#dismiss_your_manager”.

Cyber police in Kochi has also said that it will take action after getting all the details.

The Kathua rape and murder was condemned by United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres as well. Terming as “horrific” the rape and murder, Guterres expressed hope that the authorities will bring perpetrators of the brutal crime to justice.

“I think we’ve seen the media reports of this horrific case, of the abuse and the murder of a young girl. We very much hope that the authorities will bring the perpetrators to justice so they can be held accountable for the murder of this young girl,” Guterres’ spokesperson Stephane Dujjaric told reporters at his daily press briefing at the United Nations on Friday.

Dujjaric was responding to a question about the Secretary General’s response to the rape and murder of the girl.

A Special Investigation Team of Jammu and Kashmir Police Crime Branch, formed to probe the incident, has arrested eight people, including two special police officers (SPOs) and a head constable and a sub-inspector, who were charged with destroying evidence.

Breaking his silence over the incident on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday called it a “shame” for the country and asserted that the guilty will not be spared.

“I want to assure the nation that no criminal will be spared. Justice will be done. Our daughters will get justice,” he said.

With inputs from PTI