Father, stepmother awarded life imprisonment for killing minor daughter

KOCHI: The court has 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.

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 had 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.

The trial court found that the accused did not intend to kill the child and that they only injured him to teach them discipline. The high court observed that the trial court did not consider the medical evidence and gave priority to the defense' argument. The court then sentenced them to life imprisonment.