'School reunion brought back old girlfriend, assisted in murdering first wife'

THRISSUR: Police confirmed Premkumar, accused in the Padiyur twin murder case, as a notorious criminal. He was now out on parole in the case of murdering his first wife Vidya. The murder took place in 2019 and was known as "Udayamperoor Vidhya murder case" after it got wide attention from the media.

Premkumar along with his girlfriend Sunitha Baby murdered Vidya (39), a native of Puthiya Parambu. Premkumar and Sunitha were schoolmates in Thiruvananthapuram. At the time of the incident, Prem and his wife Vidya were living in a rented house in Udayamperoor.

Premkumar and Sunitha became close again after the reunion held at the school where they studied. Sunitha soon left her job in Hyderabad and joined a hospital in Kadakkal. Premkumar had his own office in Peyad, Thiruvananthapuram. The two soon rented a house in Thiruvananthapuram which came to Vidya’s attention. This led to the murder.

On September 20, 2019, Premkumar took Vidya's phone and threw it in the dustbin of the Netravati Express train. Later, Vidya, who had a neck ailment, was taken to Thiruvananthapuram on the pretext of consulting a doctor.

She was brought to a house in Thiruvananthapuram. At Premkumar’s insistence, both of them consumed alcohol. Vidya reached a stage of intoxication when Prem tied a rope around her neck and strangled her to death. Sunitha who was upstairs in the house, came down and confirmed the death. The body was then moved to the bathroom.

In the morning, Sunitha went to work as usual. Meanwhile, Premkumar sought help from a friend to bury the body, but to no avail. By evening, Premkumar and Sunitha put the body in the car together. Sunitha sat in the back seat with her hand supporting the dead body.

They travelled to Radhapuram North Valliyur on the Tirunelveli-Nagercoil National Highway and dumped the body in the bushes near the Erwadi Overbridge. After this, they went to the police station and filed a complaint about Vidya's missing.

Soon, Prem went into hiding but he sent a message from his phone to an officer at the Udayamperoor police station. The WhatsApp message said, "I had to kill her."

Prem booked tickets to enter Bahrain but had to cancel the trip due to delays in transferring his children to the orphanage. He was working on proceedings in front of an orphanage to complete transferring his children when police ambushed and caught him.