The body of Rosamma Punnoose, the first woman legislator of the State Assembly, who passed away in Salalah last Friday, arrived at Kochi airport at 7.15 pm by AI Express IX 544. Hundreds of party workers, including senior leaders of the CPI, were present at the airport to receive her body and pay their last respects. After the Customs clearance procedures, which lasted about 30 minutes, the body was brought out through the 4th gate of the cargo complex.
CPI state secretary Panniyan Ravindran placed a wreath on the body and paid his last respects.
Leaders, including C N Chandran, Kanam Rajendran, Kamala Sadanandan, Sivasankara Pillai, V A Kumaran, P Prasad, K K Ashraf, K M Dinakaran, A P Jayan and Prakash Babu, reached the airport to pay their homage. The body was accompanied by son Dr Thomas Punnoose, daughter Dr Geetha, daughter-in-law Alice, son-in-law Jacob and grandchildren.
Rosamma Punnoose had been living with her son at Salalah for the last two years. She was admitted to Sultan Qaboos University Hospital after being taken ill. She died of a heart attack at 11.30 pm, last Friday. She was 100. Rosamma Punnoose, was the first person to be sworn in as legislator soon after the first assembly polls in Kerala in 1957. She was also the first pro-tem speaker of the Assembly. She began her momentous career with the Travancore State Congress in 1939, but she joined the Communist Party of India in 1948.
A law graduate, she returned to the state assembly for the second time in 1987. She stepped down as chairperson of the Kerala State Women’s Commission in 1998 and keptaway from active politics thereafter.
She was a freedom fighter, and was arrested and imprisoned along with her sister Accamma Cherian, a prominent freedom fighter herself, in 1939.