“No person could finish reading the case diary without shedding tears for her,” says K B Mahendra, special prosecutor in the 2019 Thushara murder case, which shook the state’s conscience.
Though murder in any form is dreadful, what set the case of the 28-year-old apart was that she was left to die of starvation by her husband and in-laws for dowry. The gruesome act did not go unpunished as the Kollam additional district sessions court sentenced Thushara’s husband, Chandulal, and his mother, Geetha Lali, to life imprisonment on April 28.
A native of Karunagappally, Thushara married Chandulal in 2013. Her husband and in-laws soon began torturing her for dowry and barred her from talking to her family and neighbours. Six years later, in March 2019, she died at home. By the time she died, Thushara had been reduced to a bag of bones, weighing just 21 kg — that’s even substandard for a seven-year-old girl.
From the onset, it was clear that the case hinged on circumstantial evidence. As the majority of the incidents happened within the four walls of the house, there were no eyewitnesses.
There was no forensic evidence as well since there was not a single crumb of food in her stomach when autopsy was conducted.
The argument of the accused was that Thushara died at the hospital and hence it was not a murder.
But the prosecution blew the argument apart by producing hospital documents that revealed Thushara was brought dead, and the matter was immediately conveyed to the police as unnatural death.
The prosecution also produced medical documents of Thushara that were prepared when she went to deliver her second child in 2017. At that time, as per the documents, she weighed 48 kg. Mahendra says the statement of an immediate neighbour turned crucial in establishing that the family denied Thushara food.
The witness, a lady, told the court that once when she went to the house, she saw Thushara carrying a plate of food. Her mother-in-law, Geetha, soon appeared and pushed away the plate, which fell on the ground. Geetha then scolded Thushara and told her to fetch the food from the floor and have it if she wants.
An ASHA worker also testified against the mother-son duo. She said she witnessed the ill-treatment doled out to Thushara by her in-laws when she went there to check on her since she was carrying.
Since Thushara was never allowed to interact with anyone outside the family, the neighbours were not aware of what was happening. To prevent others from seeing what was happening inside, Geetha and her son had erected an eight-foot-high tinsheet wall.
Mahendra says it was a painful experience arguing the case. “I have argued numerous cases, but in none of them were the stomachs of the victims totally empty. This lady had not eaten for days,” Mahendra says.
“I checked with lawyers across the state to see if they had come across such a case
before. They told me no, and added that the accused should not go unpunished,” he concludes.