Kerala human sacrifice case: Victim's son alleges govt not serious, awaits body for final rites

Kochi: The son of one of the deceased in the Kerala Human Sacrifice case has alleged that the Tamil Nadu government is not taking the case seriously and said that the killers will commit the same crimes after their release from police custody. "I have met Kerala Chief Minister twice. He is not taking the case seriously. Even after filing a complaint, the officials are not helping us. DNA test should be done and the dead body should be released soon," the son of the deceased in the Human Sacrifice case said addressing the media persons on Monday.

The allegations have been made by Selvaraj, who is the son of Padma, whose remains were exhumed from a pit near the residence of the accused husband-wife pair of Bhagaval Singh and Laila in the Pathanamthitta district of Kerala.

Selvaraj further said that they came from Tamil Nadu and are now suffering in Kerala."We came from Tamil Nadu and are suffering in Kerala. After the death of my mother, there was no help from the government. I am sure that the killers of my mother will commit these types of crimes when they come out," he said.

Further expressing his inability to pay for a lawyer, Padma`s son said that it is getting "impossible" to perform his mother`s last rites as they have already suffered a loss mounting over Rs 60,000 for their stay in Kerala.

"I don`t have the ability to pay for a lawyer for the case. It is not even possible to perform the last rites of my mother. I already lost over Rs 60,000 to stay in Kerala. I also lost my job due to pursuing the case," he added.

According to the police reports, the main accused Muhammed Shafi in the said Human sacrifice case had approached the 52-year-old Padma on September 26.

Padma used to sell lottery tickets in Kochi and Shafi lured her by offering Rs 15,000 for sex work, which she initially refused but later accepted and went to the residence of the other two accused in Pathanamthitta where she was strangled with a plastic cord around her neck.

The police`s remand report read that she was strangled with the intention to make her unconscious, following which Shafi mutilated her private parts using a knife and slit her throat. After that, they chopped her into 56 pieces and put the mutilated body parts into buckets and buried them in a pit.

Notably, the Perumbavoor Magistrate Court in the Ernakulam district on October 27 sent all three accused in this case to nine days of police custody.