KOCHI: Moly, who was born deaf and dumb, in her dying declaration given through fingerspelling stated, “Send my husband to jail. Teach him obedience. I want him back”. She pleaded so, without knowing that her days were counted and that the injuries inflicted on her by her suspicious husband after dousing kerosene and setting her ablaze, in front of her 3-year-old son, were more than 70%, which is sufficient to take away her life in a few days. She died seven days after the incident. Later, the Sessions Court, Kollam, awarded life imprisonment to her husband, Anil Kumar of Kollam. Challenging this, the convict approached the High Court, but it was dismissed on Wednesday.
While upholding the life imprisonment, the Division Bench said, “Nothing short of an angel could be so magnanimous to such a husband, who is solely responsible for her untold miseries, even when she was struggling for her life. She could not cry even once when the flames surrounded her, as she was born deaf and dumb.”
It said that when she was born, her parents abandoned her, forcing her to spend her childhood at an orphanage in Kottayam. When the convict, who is also deaf and dumb, proposed to marry her, she wholeheartedly accepted, and married him in 2012. Destiny has now put her husband in jail and their only son, now 10 years old, has been forced to live without the love, affection, care and support of his parents, reminiscent of the childhood of his mother.
The prosecution mainly relied upon Moly’s dying declaration. She told the magistrate that her husband poured kerosene on her body and set her ablaze. When neighbours tried to save her, her husband tried to push her towards the flames. He also did not accompany her to the hospital. Even at that time, she told the Magistrate that her husband was also deaf and dumb and that she still needed her husband after he received lessons of obedience from jail.
The court said that the law is well settled that a dying declaration can be taken as the basis for entering into a conviction if it is found to the satisfaction of the court to be voluntary and trustworthy. There are no grounds to disbelieve that dying declaration, which is 100% reliable and trustworthy.