Mystery shrouds death of Adithi’s mother, postmortem report says girl didn’t have food for days

KOZHIKODE: The locals stepped forward soon after the high court awarded imprisonment to father of six-year-old Adithi and her stepmother. The girl was subjected to brutal torture. The locals said the postmortem report had mentioned that the girl did not have food for days. They said they are happy with the high court verdict. They said the accused should never be released and raised suspicion on the death of her mother.

The court awarded life imprisonment to Subramanian Namboothiri and Ramla Beegum alias Devika Antharjanam, father and stepmother of six-year-old Adithi S Namboothiri in Kozhikode, who died after brutal torture. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 2 lakh each. The high court had charged the two with murder. The high court had overturned the finding of the Kozhikode Additional Sessions Court that the murder charge against the accused could not be sustained.

The trial court had sentenced the accused to two and three years in prison respectively. The government had appealed against this. The high court had also assessed that there was sufficient evidence to charge the accused with murder after considering the statement of the girl's brother. The verdict was passed by a bench of Justices V Raja Vijayaraghavan and K V Jayakumar.

Adithi, daughter of Subramanian Namboothiri from his first marriage, succumbed to her injuries on April 29 in 2013 after being subjected to brutal torture. Subramanian also has a ten-year-old son in this relationship. After his first wife died in a road accident, he married Ramla Begum (Devika Antharjanam) in 2011. He married her after six months of his wife’s death. Devika was an accused in a theft case.

Devika committed brutal torture with the aim of eliminating both the children. She made them do hard work without even giving them food and poured boiling water on Adithi's private parts. Although the child was severely burned, they did not even bother to provide treatment and this led to her death.