Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

When suicide notes proved crucial

The suicide note of Manju, a 23-year-old woman hailing from Valiasala in the city, led to the conviction of her husband, mother-in-law and sister-in-law this week on the charge of driving her to suicide by harassing her in the name of dowry.

On August 11, Manju's husband, Sankar (34), his mother, Velammal (64) and Sankar's sister, Selvi (28) were sentenced to seven years' rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs. 1 lakh each by the First Additional Assistant Sessions Judge, S.S. Vasan. The court had found the three guilty of the offences under Sections 304 (B), 34 and 498 (A) of the Indian Penal Code.

The First Information Report (FIR) on Manju's death was registered at the Fort police station on March 20, 2003 on the basis of a statement given by her husband. According to him, Manju was found hanging from the ceiling fan in the top floor of the house at around 8.30 p.m. She had used a saree to tie the knot around her neck. According to the FIR, Sankar rushed her to a private hospital at Killippalam. She was taken from there to the Medical College Hospital (MCH) where she was pronounced dead on admission.

The then Assistant Commissioner of Police, Fort, K.K. Jayamohan, who investigated the case, says Manju's death would have been written off as yet another case of suicide had it not been for the two suicide notes she had concealed in her clothes. One note was addressed to her parents and the other to the police. In her note to the police, she had made it clear that she was committing suicide because of harassment by her husband and in-laws, he said.

On the basis of the suicide notes, the police made a discreet inquiry among Manju's neighbours and her husband's relatives. "We learnt that Sankar used to often beat his wife saying that he would have been better off financially had he married another woman. From the beginning itself, we guessed that Manju's death was a fit case for slapping the charge of dowry harassment", says Mr. Jayamohan.

The police also stumbled across "oral evidence" that Manju, mother of two children, was "relentlessly" teased by her in-laws for having a knee ailment that limited her mobility. The police contacted Manju's father, Swarnam Pillai, who produced several letters written to him by his daughter.

In many of them, Manju had described harassment at the hands of her husband and in-laws. The Additional Government Pleader, S. Shanavas, who led the prosecution, said that Manju's father testified in the court that Sankar had constantly made demands for money even several years after the marriage.

In order to authenticate the letters written by Manju, the police used the services of handwriting experts from the Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL). The experts testified in the court that the same person had written the letters produced as evidence by the police. The prosecution examined more than 24 persons during the trial.

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