HYDERABAD: Eleven years after the death of a 25-year-old woman, LB Nagar Sessions Court has convicted three persons, including her husband, for 10 years of rigorous imprisonment. According to prosection, the woman, Indiramma, had died in 2013 after consuming toddy in which her husband Chandanelly Venkatesh and his mother Yadamma and his maternal uncle Buttatala Manaiah mixed insecticide.
Following her death, her brother Pulapally Kistaiah complained to the Shankarpally police on May 31, 2013 expressing suspicion that she was killed by her husband for a dowry of Rs 20,000.
In the complaint, Kistaiah said that his brother-in-law informed him that Indiramma did not wake up in the morning after consuming toddy the previous night. The Shankarpally police had sent the body for post-mortem after conducting a panchanama.
The assistant civil surgeon of the Chevella Area Hospital performed the post-mortem examination and sent the viscera of Indiramma to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Hyderabad, for chemical analysis. Based on the FSL report, the doctor came to the conclusion that the cause of death of the woman was due to “organophosphate, an insecticide poison along with ethyl alcohol”. The chemical analysis report elaborated that the victim’s stomach, intestine, liver and kidney were found to contain insecticide poison along with ethyl alcohol. The report proved beyond doubt that her husband along with his mother and uncle conspired to kill her.
Venkatesh also consumed the toddy, nothing happened to him while his wife Indiramma had died the next day, according to the deposition of her brother in the court.
Kistaiah said that Indiramma’s marriage was performed on March 8, 2009 to Venkatesh, At the time of marriage, Venkatesh was given Rs 50,000 and three tolas of gold as dowry.
Their marital life was happy for the first one year. But later her husband and mother-in-law Yadamma and father-in-law had started harassing Indiramma frequently for more dowry.
Kistaiah said in his deposition that two months back before she was killed, Indiramma had called him to say that she was being harassed by his husband and in-laws demanding additional dowry. Venkatesh’s maternal uncle Manaiah even suggested that Indiramma divorce her husband so that he could marry his daughter.
Indiramma’s parents had held a panchayat to settle the issue and sought more time for meeting the dowry demand of Venkatesh. But within two months, she was poisoned to death.