Thiruvananthapuram: A Kerala woman who was reported missing by her husband in September, is now believed to have been murdered by him after he met a school crush at a reunion and started living with the latter.
In a development that shocked the state, police believe Puthiaparambu Vidya, 48, was murdered by her husband P Premkumar, 40, after Premkumar and his childhood friend and classmate Sunitha Baby, 39, met at a school reunion recently.
Vidya’s marriage to Premkumar was her fourth marriage, and though Premkumar told police that his marriage to Vidya was his first, police have not taken the statement at face value. Premkumar hails from Kottayam and Vidya from Cherthala.
Long after their school days in Thiruvananthapuram in the 1990s, Premkumar had worked at different hotels and also had a brief stint in the Gulf, while Baby married and settled down in Hyderabad.
After they met through the reunion, Baby moved to Thiruvananthapuram and she and Premkumar rented a house in the outskirts of the capital city. Police believe that the relation between Premkumar and Vidya turned sour after Vidya sensed her husband’s new love life.
Premkumar and Baby are accused of plotting the murder of Vidya, by first dumping Vidya’s phone in a train to mislead investigators following mobile phone leads, and then luring her to their rented residence where she was given liquor and then strangulated to death at night.
Investigators believe that Premkumar and Baby then put Vidya’s body in a car and drove along the Tirunelveli-Nagercoil road and dumped the body by the roadside in an isolated place. During the journey, Baby is believed to have sat with Vidya’s corpse in the rear seat, putting her arms around the corpse to prevent it from falling.
The elaborate scheme to mislead the police was cut short by Premkumar himself when, after initially filing a petition that his wife had gone missing, his voice message reached the police in which he admitted he had done away with his wife.
Premkumar and Vidya have two children, and Baby and her husband have three children.
