Neighbours murder elderly woman for gold

Thiruvananthapuram:

Vizhinjam

police have arrested a three-member family, including a woman, her live-in partner and her son for allegedly murdering a 74-year-old woman for robbing her

gold

ornaments. The police identified the accused as Rafeeqa Beevi, 50, her partner Al Ameen, 26, hailing from Palakkad and her son Shafeeq, 23. Santhakumari of Alummoodu Veedu at Mulloor is the victim in the case.

The police said that the alleged murder took place on Friday morning at the rented house of the accused. Santhakumari was their next door neighbour. The crime was committed on the same day they were supposed to vacate the rented house.

‘’Around 10.30 am the accused invited Santhakumari to their house and strangulated her using a shawl and also bludgeoned her on head using a hammer,’’ said Vizhinjam station house officer inspector Prajeesh Sasi.

They then took the gold ornaments worn by the deceased and fled from the house. Before leaving, they stashed the dead body on the attic of the house. The crime became public when the house owner’s son reached there around 8.30 pm. The house owner’s son and friends used a single-room building outside the house for the purpose of competitive exam coaching classes. When he arrived at the night, he noticed that the door of the house was closed, but the key was left behind in the door. When he entered, he saw blood dripping down from the attic and informed the police.

The police initially suspected that it was Rafeeqa who died. Soon, they identified the deceased as Santhakumari. With the help of cyber experts, the police found out that the trio were at Thycaud in the evening. It was the same spot where private inter-state buses commenced journeys. The police assumed that the accused were planning to escape from the city and alerted all police stations to check long distance buses. By midnight, a police team intercepted a bus at Kazhakootam and caught the accused.

During the interrogation, the accused told the police that they committed the crime due to financial crisis. All three of them did not have stable jobs. Al Ameen and Shafeeq used to work in restaurants at Kovalam. Al Ameen lost his job recently owing to his wayward lifestyle involving alcoholism.

The accused had robbed a gold necklace, a pair of gold earrings, two gold bangles and a gold ring from the victim. Before boarding the bus in the evening, they pawned some of the ornaments for Rs 50,000. The accused will be produced before the court on Sunday.