KOLLAM: When getting off the police jeep for collecting evidence, Giritha’s face didn’t show any feeling of guilt. She was unmoved even when locals crowded around her and hurled verbal abuses at her. Without any fear or anxiety she narrated to the investigation officers the crime she had committed.

Police Case Diary

Giritha had married Vendar Ambady Puthenveedu resident Bimal Kumar. After the first month of the marriage, she couldn’t get along well with Bimal’s mother Ramani Amma (66)..

Bimal was a KSRTC conductor and cable TV agent. Most often Bimal reached home late and on many occasions he had seen her wife and mother quarrelling, when he stepped into the house.

It was most unexpectedly that Giritha got close to her neighbour, who used to come to the house as if to mediate between quarrelling parties.
Ramani Amma started noticing the growing intimate relationship between Ritha and the neighbour and this in fact spelt doom for the former.

In 2015, Bimal, wife and children shifted to Wayanad and they enrolled their elder daughter in Navodhaya school. In 2019, the family returned to their family house. Ritha again started quarrelling with her mother-in-law.

The day of Crime

On December 11, Ramani Amma had dozed in her room after lunch.

Giritha emboldened her mind to commit the crime. She lifted the washing stone that was lying outside and put it in a Big Shopper bag. The stone weighed 9 kg. She went into the room swung the bag with the stone and hit hard on Ramani Amma’s head.

Ramani Amma tried to jump up the bed, crying alarmingly. Ritha caught her by neck and thrusted her onto the bed. She took the bag containing stone again and, this time, hit Ramani Amma even harder two times.

Hearing the cries, the locals ran to the house and broke open the door to see the old woman lying in a pool of blood. She was soon rushed to hospital; she died later while under treatment at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College.

On being informed, Puthoor police reached the house and arrested Giritha. Police said the youth, who is Giritha’s neighbour and presumed lover, didn’t have any role in the murder. Nevertheless, he would be summoned for interrogation.