THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There is no pookalam outside the small, government-allotted house at Nedumgad near Karamana. While the rest of the state gears up to celebrate Onam, Padmavathi Amma lives in silence.
For it was during Onam in September 2005 that Udayakumar, her only son was taken into police custody. He never returned. For the past 20 years, the festival has brought with it renewed grief for the septuagenarian.
This Onam, her pain and sadness have intensified, as the Kerala High Court on Friday acquitted all police officials accused in Udayakumar’s custodial death, reversing a 2018 CBI court verdict that had sentenced two officers to death and three others to three years in jail. For a mother, who spent nearly two decades walking in and out of courtrooms, it feels as though justice has been stolen again.
“I cannot forget that night,” Padmavathi says softly, her eyes moist. “My son was only 26. He was a scrap dealer. He usually came home by evening, but that day he didn’t. I waited and waited, hoping to hear the sound of his cycle at the gate. All the time I was waiting, he was being tortured inside a police station.”
Earlier that day, police had picked Udayakumar up from a park on the suspicion of theft after finding Rs 4,000 on his person. He was allegedly tortured in custody and breathed his last at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital that night.
“What was his crime? Possessing Rs 4,000? Among the money he had was the Rs 1,000 I gave him to buy new clothes for Onam. If that is a crime, then what is my punishment?” she asks.
Her son’s death robbed her not only of family but also festivity. “I never celebrated Onam again,” she says. Inside the house, there is no photograph of Udayakumar. The only reminder she has of him is a pair of old clothes locked away in her almirah. The years since his death were an unending struggle. She recalls walking to court hearings for more than a decade, often on an empty stomach.
“I am illiterate. I do not know much about the legal system. However, I believed in justice. For over a decade, I fought. Now, I must start all over again,” she says.
She survives on a meagre old-age pension and the interest from the Rs 2 lakh given by the state government. Her days are lonely. “I worked as a maid in a school. The day I learnt of my son’s death, teachers and police took me to the mortuary. I cannot forget the sight of his body. I cried out, asking ‘Bhagavathi Amma, who could do this to my son, who never harmed anyone?”
During the time she waged a legal war, she constantly lived in fear. She remembers being watched, harassed and even threatened. “A policeman once came to my house pretending to ask if it was available for rent. I knew they wanted to silence me. There were even attempts to kill me. God saved me. I am not afraid. I will fight until my last breath. I have nothing more to lose,” she says, her voice steady despite the tears.
Her brother Mohan, who lives nearby, often checks in on her. “She lost her only child and now lives alone with her grief. We don’t know how justice slipped away, but no family should go through such pain again,” he says.
As families across Kerala get ready to host their relatives to celebrate Onam, Padmavathi Amma sits in her quiet house, clinging on to her son’s memories and the hope that justice will one day prevail. For her, there is no feast, no flowers, no joy – only a fight that refuses to end.