Live-in partner’s killer hangs himself in Indian jail

Ashraf Padanna, Correspondent

A 46-year-old Indian man who hacked to death his live-in partner in broad daylight in the city before a crowd last week committed suicide in jail on Sunday.

The police said the man identified as Rajesh took his life by hanging in the toilet around 2.30am, while other inmates were sleeping in their cells at the district jail.

They said he took permission from the guards to go to the toilet where he hung using his lungi mundu, the long single piece of cloth worn around the waist.

By around 3am, they took him to a state-run hospital in the city around 3am where the doctors confirmed his death on arrival.

Rajesh, who hails from the neighbouring Kollam district killed Sindhu, 50, at Vazhayila near Peroorkada on the busy Ponmudi road in the city around 9am on Thursday.

Sindhu of Pandiyampara in Palode was to start her new job as a home nurse on the day and she was on her way to the agency that hired her when he attacked her.

The police soon arrested Rajesh, Sindhu’s childhood friend, and placed in the city jail pending investigation. According to the police, Sindhu separated from her husband a few years back, though not divorced, and she was raising her daughter doing menial jobs.

He befriended her while he was living in the staff quarters of the Institute Of Animal Health And Veterinary Biologicals in Palode where his mother worked.

Sindhu’s husband deserted her and their daughter a few years after their marriage and she started living with Rajesh 12 years ago in a rented house. She was working as a caregiver for a bedridden elderly at a doctor’s home in the city for ten years until the patient died.

Rajesh, who was already married, started harassing her when her source of income stopped and she started searching for another job. She even borrowed money from others to help Rajesh to buy an autorickshaw and started a small juice shop, which did not succeed.

When she failed to pay rent, her house owner asked her to leave and her daughter, who was married off, came and took her to her sister’s home.

Rajesh decided to take revenge, the police say, when she refused to continue their relationship. A few minutes before the attack, she called her sister and told her that Rajesh was following her on a bus.

He hacked her in her neck, head and hands several times using a machete while many people looked on.