Thodupuzha: The death of the seven-year-old boy who was brutally assaulted by his mother's live-in partner has disturbed many Keralites. The child died in a hospital in Kolenchery in Kerala's Ernakulam district on Saturday, nine days after being on the ventilator. A pall of gloom descended on Udumbannoor, near Thodupuzha, when his lifeless body was brought to his mother's house by 8 pm on Saturday after autopsy at the Kottayam Medical College Hospital.
No one, even neighbours, knew if the body would be brought there until 5 pm. As it was confirmed, locals started pouring in and women stood around one another speechless.
A relative opened the doors of the house. The boy's grandmother had reached early with the deceased boy’s four-year-old brother.
Most people gathered there had tears rolling down their cheek. His mother and other relatives paid their final respects inside the house as the body was kept wrapped in a white shroud. The body was then kept on a table in the porch where locals paid tributes. The boy was buried in the yard nearby by 9.30 pm.
The younger boy was riding his bicycle and playing with toys in front of the house before people started pouring in. He had a smile on his lips until the body of his brother was brought near him. He did not play with the toys again, possibly because of the crowd and wails. As he said a few days ago: ‘Pappi (elder brother) never opened eyes again.’
No end to disturbing news
It has now come to light that the treatment of the boy commenced at least one-and-a-half hour after he was brought to the hospital by his mother and her lover Arun Anand who assaulted him late last month, leaving him in a coma. The apparent delay was owing to the reluctance of the duo in completing the hospital formalities after Arun quarrelled with doctors and other authorities.
Meanwhile, reports from the deceased child's school reveal that he was famished often.
"I’m hungry, give me a biscuit," the seven-year-old would tell his classmates frequently.
It is said the boy's relatives knew of the abuses he and his brother were subjected to by Arun only recently.
Arun, who will now be charged with murder apart from other cases, had tried to get the child out of the way several times before, the boy's relatives claimed. He had forced the boy to walk to school a kilometre away from home while in Thiruvananthapuram.
He would have wanted the boy to face an accident, they suspect.
Once Arun left the boy alone in a crowded part of a town. He reportedly found joy in making him starve. The younger child too had bruises on his legs, suggesting Arun tortured him too. The question, why the mother did not interfere to stop abuse of her children, remains unanswered.
Three schools in a year
The boy had to switch schools thrice last academic year. He was a student at the Government Vocational Higher Secondary School, Thattakkuzha in neighbouring Idukki district. Then he was admitted to a school in Thiruvananthapuram when his mother started living with Arun. He then joined a government school nearby once the family returned to Kumaramangalam in Thodupuzhaa month ago and it was here the boy received the fatal torture.
The younger child was in the LKG in the same school.
The brothers went to school last on March 27, a day before the final day’s exam. The school had arranged pudding which both the kids ate, said school authorities. They enquired the next day when the children failed to turn up at school. The mother told them the elder child was injured after falling off the cot.
The boy landed in the hospital after Arun, his 'uncle-turned-step-father' brutally assaulted him on March 28 early morning leaving him in coma.
According to doctors in the hospital, condition of the boy was very critical right from the moment he was admitted in the ICU. Chances of reviving his brain’s function were very less. He was on artificial respiration.
According to Dr G Sreekumar, neurosurgeon at the medical college, a surgery was performed to stop internal bleeding in the brain. He was being fed through a tube. About 50ml of liquid food was being given to him every hour but nothing could save him.
The boy had a 2-inch crack on his skull and over 20 injury marks on his body when he arrived in the hospital.
The child's harrowing tale began at 1.30 am on March 28, 2019 (Thursday). The mother and her live-in partner Arun Anand, who is also her late husband Biju's first cousin (son of father's sister), locked the children from outside the bedroom and left for a late-night dinner. According to the mother, who talked to a few vernacular dailies after the incident, Arun used to tell her that they should leave the boys alone at home so that they could grow up as brave boys.
She trusted him and left for dinner and returned around 3am. They found the kids sleeping and the couple also got into the bed. Arun realised that the younger kid had wetted the bed. This infuriated him and he thrashed the elder boy for not taking the younger one to wash room before they went to bed.
Six-foot tall Arun kicked the kid in the stomach. The kid was thrown up in the air and banged his head against the wall. He was picked up and thrown again. This time the child's head hit the edge of a steel almirah. Arun then grabbed the kid's head and banged it against the cot.
The kid fell on the ground. Arun kicked several times and dragged him through other rooms also. This left blood stains everywhere.
Arun also beat the mother who tried to intervene. The four-year-old was also beaten. The room was cleaned and the younger one was locked up again before the duo took the elder child to hospital. Around 3.50am, the mother and Arun took the kid to a hospital in Thodupuzha where the mother stated that the kid had fallen from the bed but the doctors referred him to the private medical college at Kolenchery as he was in a critical condition.
The cops soon arrested Arun and he was also slapped with charges under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act for sexually abusing the younger kid apart from attempt to murder. With the death of the boy, the cops will now charge him with murder also.
The cops also talked to the younger child and he narrated the whole incident to police.
Arun and the mother of the boy were staying at the rented house at Kumaramangalam on the pretext of being a married couple. The family remained rather isolated as they did not maintain any close connections with their neighbours.
The boy's mother is a BTech graduate and Arun is also a civil engineering degree holder from Nandankode in Thiruvananthapuram district. She is from a well-to-do family and her mother is a retired teacher. She is the only daughter.
According to relatives, she trusted every word of Arun because apparently he was the only person who supported her to recover the shock of her husband's death last year. She was married to Biju from Thiruvananthapuram. Biju had set up a workshop at Vengalloor near Thodupuzha after the marriage. They were blessed with two sons and Biju died following a heart attack in May, 2018. Biju's body was cremated at his native place in Thiruvananthapuram. The wife also went to Thiruvananthapuram for the funeral where she stayed for a few days with her in-laws. She met Arun, who is Biju's first cousin, there.
After Biju's death, Arun, who is a divorcee, became close to the woman. She finally decided to live with Arun, taking her kids along. Her mother was against this but she was adamant. The mother also approached the police but the woman told a court that she wanted to go with Arun. But they never married officially. The woman's mother did not allow Arun to stay in her house. So, the couple lived in Thiruvananthapuram for a while before moving to Kumaramangalam near Thodupuzha.
Arun was also first married to a model and he has a 10-year-old daughter from that marriage. They were divorced later. The daughter now lives with her mother.
Arun reopened the workshop owned by Biju and started managing things there. But the woman or Arun never visited her mother at Udumbannoor.
According to vernacular newspaper reports, Arun is known as 'Cobra' among the underworld gangs of Thiruvananthapuram. His parents were bank employees. A report said his father died while he was in service and Arun was offered a job in the 'dying in harness' quota. But he refused the offer and started developing contacts with the criminal gangs in Thiruvananthapuram. Soon, he was involved in drugs trade also. His elder brother is a defence personnel.
Arun is also a murder case accused. He has seven cases against him registered at four police stations in Kerala.
Mother-in-law of the woman, however, had come out in support of her daughter-in-law.
She told Manorama, “I will not find fault with her even if the whole world blames her. She is not a heartless mother.”
Three days after her husband Biju's death in May 2018, the woman had told her in-laws that she wanted to marry Arun Anand.
However, the woman's mother-in-law justified that also. “It is true that she went with Arun soon after my son's death. All relatives, including me, warned her not to. It could be her fate. He (Arun) started abusing the kids and her right from beginning. Arun used to force her and kids starve. He abused them physically.
But we didn’t know anything about all these. She didn’t tell anyone. Had she revealed something, this would not have happened. My husband is a retired postmaster and I am a retired teacher. We can take care of them,” she told mediapersons earlier.