Handing over skull to parents is a rare incident; truth came out through historical struggle

KASARGOD: Legal experts are saying that the case in which only the victim’s skull was handed over to her parents is a rare one. All the office-bearers of the action committee, who led a historic struggle to enable Safiya's parents to receive her remains, were present in court.

The action committee had conducted a 120-day-long protest for Kodagu native Safiya (13), who worked as a domestic worker in the house of Kasargod Masthikund native KC Hamza due to extreme poverty.

It was former Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan who left the case to the Crime Branch. The case was proven by a special investigation team led by Crime Branch DySP.

Action committee office-bearers Ambalathara Kunjikrishnan, Periya Narayanan, Subair Paduppu, Ajithkumar Azad, Vijayalakshmi Kadambanjal, Abdul Khader, M Sulfath, Fareena Kottappuram and Shafi Kalluvalappu were present at the court yesterday along with Safiya's family members.

Safiya faced brutal torture
Safiya was the eldest of the six children of Moidu, who looked after his family by working in a coffee plantation in Kodagu. She faced brutal torture while working as a domestic worker in the house of contractor Hamza in Masthikund. Upon suffering frequent torture at Hamza's house, the girl started shouting to return to her house. Following this, Hamza abducted her to his workplace in Goa and killed her. After chopping her body into several pieces, he buried them at the site of a dam using a JCB.

Safiya's father was disheartened as the police wrote off the case by claiming that it was a mere missing case. On his way back home, he met some social workers in Kasaragod and told them about the case. Following this, the action committee launched a protest.

The case was brought to the District Principal Sessions Court in 2012. The trial concluded in 2015 and the court awarded a death sentence for the accused. However, the High Court later reduced the death sentence to life imprisonment.