Thiruvananthapuram: A man in Kerala who befriended a housewife through a missed call, then visited her home and murdered her and made away with her gold ornaments totalling 12 sovereigns, was given life imprisonment by the Mavelikara additional district sessions court on Saturday. The court also fined him Rs25,000 (Dh1,475).
The convict, identified as Sunilkumar (30) of Vazhukkapara in Palakkad district and was working with a workshop in Manjeri in north Kerala, had befriended Rashida Beevi (45), wife of Pookunju of Irshad Manzil in Kayamkulam in the south of the state, in 2010.
The prosecution argued that Sunilkumar took Beevi into confidence, visited her home in July 2010 and cleverly made her consume sleeping pills. He then strangled her to death and made away with her ornaments.
Sunilkumar had also confiscated Beevi’s mobile phone and diary, in an effort not to leave any trace of the murder. It was only the next morning that Beevi was found dead. Police initially interrogated her husband who was sleeping in the adjacent room when the murder happened.
Police cracked the case after following the calls that came to Beevi’s mobile phone. The prosecution could also produce the stub of a cigarette Sunilkumar had used while at Beevi’s home.
The sentence comes just a day after two policemen in the state were given life imprisonments on Friday for the custodial death of a youth.
The additional sessions court in Kollam sentenced police constables Jayakumar, 47, and Venugopal, 48, to life imprisonment and a fine of Rs100,000 each for the custodial death of one Rajendran, 37, in 2005.
The money is to be paid to the mother of the deceased. The deceased man had died after interrogation by the policemen, and the prosecution argument was that he died after being subjected to third-degree methods. The court also directed the state government to pay Rs200,000 to the mother of the deceased.
Rajendran was taken into custody from a private hospital after a complaint from the hospital regarding the theft of a mobile phone from there. He was questioned at the East police station after which he was brought back to hospital in the evening, where he was declared dead. Out of the 60 witnesses in the case, nearly two dozen where police officials.
