'I'm telling you the truth, I did not do anything wrong'; Shaji's mother Lalitha about her son's last words

KANNUR: "Although we gave him food, he did not eat it. He ate only the bread he bought while coming from Thiruvananthapuram," said a teary-eyed Lalitha, the mother of PN Shaji, who committed suicide in grief over the bribery allegations. This mother's heart is aching as she speaks about her son's innocence. Kannur Thazhe Chovva native PN Shaji was the 'Margamkali' judge at the Kerala University Youth Festival.

"They killed him," says Lalitha to those who came to comfort her. Shaji's relatives said that Shaji had been devastated since he arrived from Thiruvananthapuram on Monday.

Lalitha said that Shaji came to her before going to bed at night.

"He said he had done nothing wrong. Seeing the scars on his face and the swelling on his neck, I asked him if anyone had done anything to him. However, he said no. When I asked him about the black scar on his face, he fell to my feet and said that he had not done anything wrong. He said that he only had to convince me and he did not care what others said about him," she added.

Shaji, a dance teacher, had been training school and college students for arts festivals for several years. He had earlier run a dance establishment at Cherukunnu in Kannur. Wife: Shamna.

"They are saying that he took a bribe. Would this house be in this condition if he had taken a bribe?" Lalitha asks pointing at the house which is in a dilapidated condition. The family lives in a small house with cracked walls and rotten doors and windows.

According to the family, on Wednesday morning, Shaji went inside his room and locked the door after saying that he wanted to sleep for some time and that we would wake up by the evening. In the evening, Lalitha tried to wake him up by knocking on the door. As he did not respond despite repeated knocking on the door, Lalitha called the neighbours for help. On breaking the door open, the neighbours found Shaji lying unconscious on the bed. Although he was immediately rushed to the Kannur district hospital, he could not be saved.