THRISSUR: Putting an end to the legal battle in one of the brutal murders the state has ever witnessed, Thrissur district principal sessions court on Monday awarded life imprisonment to Nidheesh, 27, who murdered Neethu, 21, a Chiyyaram native on April 4, 2019.
Nidheesh, an employee of an IT firm in Kakkanad, was allegedly in love with the engineering student for three years. He entered the bathroom through the backdoor and stabbed the victim 12 times before setting her on fire for rejecting his marriage proposal.
The couple’s TikTok account ‘The Momu Vampire’ was full of their romantic videos. Neethu’s mother had committed suicide earlier. Her father had abandoned her and she was living with her uncle and grandmother all these years. The probe team led by Thrissur City Crime Branch Assistant Police Commissioner C D Sreenivasan completed the investigation within 90 days. Though Nidheesh had approached the court with bail petitions 17 times, the court rejected all of them.
Since his arrest from the crime spot, Nidheesh has always been under custody. “It was a revenge murder. We managed to complete the probe and trial in a record time. It took only one-and-a-half years to complete the process,” said an officer who was part of the probe team. The trial was completed within three months. Nidheesh will also have to pay a fine of Rs 5 lakh.