Murder of woman: Lottery seller held

Body found on MCH premises

July 16, 2019 11:14 pm | Updated 11:14 pm IST - KOTTAYAM

Three days after finding the body of a 55-year-old woman on the Government Medical College Hospital (MCH) campus here, the police on Tuesday arrested a person in connection with the murder.

The accused has been identified as Sathyan, 45, of Kozhancherry. A retail lottery vendor, he used to live with the victim, Ponnamma till recently. A police team had earlier taken him into custody and interrogated him based on a statement by the victim’s daughter.

The accused, who confessed to the crime, was taken to the crime scene for evidence collection on Tuesday. The accused will be produced before a magistrate later.

Cash, gold stolen

Preliminary investigations suggested that the accused had killed the woman by smashing her head with an iron rod. Following the murder, the accused allegedly stole a bag containing cash and gold from the victim’s possession.

The woman used to sell lottery tickets in the Medical College area. The woman had attacked him on two occasions. To avenge these attacks, Sathyan lured Ponnamma to an isolated location near the cancer ward and killed her using an iron rod.

The body was later shifted to a waste pit and covered with card board. The partially decomposed body was found at the waste dump behind the medical college’s cancer ward.

CCTV network

Meanwhile, the Gandhinagr police have approached the hospital authority seeking to set up a CCTV camera network to improve round-the-clock surveillance on the 200-acre campus. As part of it, cameras should be established in all hospital wards and the hospital premises. Further, steps should be initiated to keep the hospital campus free of lottery vendors and other outsiders during night, besides collecting details of people who roam around the campus in a suspicious manner. Steps are also in place to strengthen police patrolling in the region during night.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.