Friday, Jan 24, 2014
Thiruvananthapuram: One of the key suspects in the infamous solar power scam that rocked Kerala in 2013, Biju Radhakrishnan, was on Friday sentenced to life in prison and fined Rs210,000 (Dh12,301) for murdering his wife, Reshmi.
Radhakrishnan’s mother, Rajammal, a former teacher and co-accused in the case, was handed a three-year jail term.
The Kollam principal district sessions court judge Ashok Menon found Radhakrishnan guilty on the counts of murder, destruction of evidence and injuring his son, and found Rajammal guilty of dowry harassment.
In passing judgement, the court said Rajammal, as a retired teacher, would have been expected to be a good mother and grandmother.
Reshmi was killed in 2006 and the police crime branch took over investigation of the case in 2008.
Initially, it was thought to be a dowry-related death but the murder angle surfaced later and Radhakrishnan was remanded in police custody in 2010. He, however, jumped bail and was later apprehended in Coimbatore in 2013.
The prosecution had argued that Radhakrishnan had forcibly fed alcohol to his wife, Reshmi and after she fell unconscious, suffocated her to death.
The sole witness statement in the case came from Radhakrishnan-Reshmi’s elder son, who was only three years old at the time of the crime.
Radhakrishnan attracted media attention in 2013 when he and Saritha S. Nair were remanded in the infamous solar power case, in which the duo duped several people to the tune of millions of rupees, promising them good returns on investments made in the solar power sector.
The scam assumed a political slant after it was revealed that Radhakrishnan and Nair had close links to some staff members in chief minister Oommen Chandy’s office.
Though it was argued that Radhakrishnan had decided to do away with Reshmi because he was befriending Nair, a private petition seeking to implicate the latter in the murder case was rejected by the court.
By Akhel Mathew Correspondent
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