It is not even two days since Kerala Women’s Commission chairperson MC Josephine said that the women in the state are not safe in their own houses. The statement was made while reacting on the recent incident where a 27-year-old woman in Kollam was starved to death by her husband and in-laws. In yet another shocking incident from the state, a mother and her daughter were found brutally murdered in their house.
Last week, 80-year-old Thankamma and her daughter 40-year-old Sini were found hammered to death in their house at Mundakayam town in the Kanjrappally taluk of Kottayam district.
The Mundakayam police on Tuesday arrested Saji, a 35-year-old resident of Kootickal in Kottayam, and booked him under Section 302 (Punishment for murder).
According to the police, the women have been living alone in the house. The victims’ house was situated on hilly terrain and there were no other houses in the immediate neighbourhood. Saji was residing around the area.
“Both the mother and the daughter knew Saji well and he used to visit them often,” a police official told TNM.
On preliminary enquiry, the police found that an argument between Sini and Saji led to the two murders. The police also said that Saji used a hammer to kill the two women.
According to reports, the post-mortem reports of Sini and Thankamma revealed that both sustained injuries in the skull.
Saji, who was initially not under the scanner of the police investigation, was taken into custody on Monday after he revealed certain details about the incident to one of his friends, in an inebriated state.
The residents in the area discovered the bodies of the two women after they sensed some foul smell emanating from the house. According to reports, Thankamma’s husband had passed away six years ago. Sini, a divorcee, has been living with her mother in Mundakkayam since a few years.