Chennai: The Madras high court upheld the life sentence awarded to a woman who had kidnapped and murdered a three and a half-year-old boy and stuffed his body in a suitcase and left it in a bus.
The body of the boy, Aditya of Virugambakkam, was found in a suitcase in Nagapattinam on July 19, 2010. Following this, Poovarasi was arrested by the police on July 21, 2010. During trial, Poovarasi attempted to explain away the crime saying she had taken the boy to her hostel and then on her motorcycle to a nearby shop when he wanted cold water. And while at the shop, Rajesh, who was known to her and the boy’s father Jayakumar, had come there in a car with his associates asking her to disclose the godown where money had been hidden by Jayakumar.
When she expressed her ignorance of the godown and money, Rajesh snatched the boy from her custody after spraying some chemical on her face. She gave a chase but when the car neared Central railway station, she lost track of it.
Thereafter, she came to a church in Parrys and started praying. While she was praying she fainted, she said.
The bench said this explanation was an absolute falsehood. Had it been true that the deceased was kidnapped in a car, she would not have rest content by keeping silent. She would have raised a hue and cry, which would have attracted the people in the shop and surrounding places. But, she did not raise any such alarm.
According to her, some persons sprinkled chemicals on her with a view to make her faint. If that were so, she would have fainted on the spot itself. She had said that she gave chase to the car. But till it reached Central railway station from a shop near YWCA hostel, she did not raise any alarm. After the car disappeared also, it was not her case that she raised an alarm. This would only go to show that it was nothing but a false explanation offered by her.
After the car disappeared, she simply and passively went to the church and started praying. This conduct of the accused that she went to the church to pray was highly unnatural.
Had it been true that the deceased was really kidnapped by Rajesh, she would have certainly not been so patient and passive to go to the church to pray. “The circumstances proved by the prosecution form a complete chain which unerringly prove the guilt of the accused”, the bench added.
