THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: K Indu, the research scholar who died mysteriously during a train journey after drowning in Periyar river, was cremated at her ancestral house at Gandhipuram near Sreekariyam here on Friday.
She was the daughter of Krishnan Nair and Omana Kunjamma, both retired public servants.
Around 4.30 PM on Friday, the body was brought to her home at Kumarapuram in the city from Alappuzha Medical College Hospital where an autopsy was conducted.
The body was kept at her house for about 30 minutes for friends and relatives to pay respects following which the body was taken to her ancestral home at Gandhipuram and cremated around 5.30 PM.
According to her relatives, the body was cremated immediately since it was already in a putrefied state. The doctors who conducted the autopsy had also advised them that it was better to cremate the body at the earliest.
Political leaders, including Opposition Leader Oommen Chandy, V S Shivakumar, Varkala Kahar, M A Vahid, Mohanachandran,
Thampanoor Ravi, C Ajayakumar and Health Minister P K Sreemathi visited her family and expressed their condolences.
Indu, who was a research scholar at the National Institute of Technology, Kozhikode, had went missing from the AC coach of the Mangalore Express train on her journey to Kozhikode from Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday last.
The police launched a massive search operation for her after Subhash, her
colleague who travelled along with her but in another compartment, reported her missing when he reached Kozhikode.
On Thursday evening, the police recovered her body from the Periyar at Kozhikkakadavu in Chengamanad police station limits near Aluva.
The body was identified by her uncles, Gopinathan Nair and Radhakrishnan Nair.
Meanwhile, the Kozhikode police interrogated Subhash again, hoping to unravel the mystery behind her death. The police, who suspect Indu to have committed suicide, are probing into whether Subhash had any role to play in the death.
They have also searched her hostel room situated on the NIT campus and
recovered her personal diary and laptop which were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory.
Simultaneously, the Cyber Cell of the state police are also working on to recover the deleted data from the two mobile phones owned by Indu.
Earlier, the body of Indu was handed over to her family after postmortem examination at Alappuzha Medical College Hospital on Friday.
The body was brought to Alappuzha MCH from Aluva around 11 AM.
The post-mortem was conducted by a team of doctors led by police surgeon Dr Sreekumari.
According to the preliminary report, Indu’s death was a case of drowning.
The body was identified by her uncles at 8 p.m. on Thursday, when it was
recovered from the Periyar and was kept at Chungamkadavu under police guard on Thursday night.