Woman arrested for murder of 5-year-old daughter, 3-year-old son in Kerala’s Palakkad

A day after two siblings were found dead in a water tub inside the bathroom of their rented home in Menonpara in Kerala’s Palakkad district, their mother was arrested for murder

A day after two siblings, aged five and three, were found dead in a water tub inside the bathroom of their rented home in Menonpara in Kerala’s Palakkad district, their mother was arrested for murder, police said.

Jennifer Juliet (5) and her brother Robin Christopher (3) were found dead in the water tub around 10:30 am on Tuesday in Kozhinjampara.

The mother, Nivedya, had initially told the police that she was busy with work and that she found her children dead after she went inside the bathroom. The children’s father, John Kumar, was out for work.

The police initially filed a case of unnatural death and conducted inquests and postmortems of the minor children. The police later took statements from locals, neighbours and the deceased children’s father, John Kumar, all of whom expressed doubts about Nivedya’s account.

The police said that Nivedya, during the course of questioning on Wednesday, confessed to drowning her children.

“The woman has claimed that her children were a hindrance to her quest to lead a free, independent life. She claimed that she wanted to study and pursue a modelling career. We have recorded her confession. But we will need to continue a comprehensive investigation into the case,” a senior officer at the Kozhinjampara police station, where the FIR was registered, said.

Vishnu Varma is Assistant Editor and reports from Kerala for the Hindustan Times. He has 10 years of experience writing for print and digital platforms and has worked at The New York Times, NDTV and The Indian Express in the past. He specialises in longform reportage at the intersections of politics, crime, social commentary and environment.Read More