IDUKKI: Three years after a seven-year-old boy was beaten to death by his mother’s live-in partner at Kumaramangalam in Thodupuzha, the re-postmortem report of his father who died in 2018 revealed that he was strangled to death.
According to initial reports, Thiruvananthapuram native Biju had died of a heart attack in 2018. Following this, his wife started living with Arun Anand, a resident of Nathencode, Kowdiar in Thiruvananthapuram and Biju’s cousin, with her two sons in Kumaramangalam.
However, a year after Biju’s death, Arun Anand was arrested by the Thodupuzha police for allegedly beating Biju’s elder son severely in March 2019. The boy, after battling for life at the Kolenchery MOSC Medical College Hospital for nine days, succumbed to injuries on April 6, 2019.
Following this, Biju’s relatives expressed their suspicion in Biju’s death as well and as per their request, the Idukki crime branch launched a probe. Although Biju’s death in his wife’s house in Thiruvananthapuram was initially thought to be due to heart attack as per the postmortem report, the re-postmortem examination which was conducted in 2019, after his relatives raised doubts in view of his elder son’s unnatural death, revealed that his death was also a murder.
No information whether Arun had any role in Biju’s murder
The details of the re-postmortem report were out only on Friday. However, the investigation team hasn’t got any details whether Arun had a role in Biju’s murder.
“The investigation is on . We are trying to collect as much evidence as possible so that the culprit(s) can be arrested without delay,” an official said.
Although the crime branch had moved the court seeking permission to conduct a lie detector test on Biju’s wife and her mother, the court granted permission to conduct the test only on his wife. The crime branch has filed an appeal against this.
On Thursday, the Special Pocso Court in Thodupuzha sentenced Arun Anand to 21 years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 3.81 lakh for sexually abusing Biju’s younger son aged four years during January-February 2019. Arun is presently lodged at the Central Jail in Poojapura in the capital.