Amitha Sunny, the 32-year-old woman who allegedly died by suicide at her husband's home at Kuruppanthara in Kerala's Kottayam district on Sunday, was preparing to go abroad.

Her family finds it hard to believe that a woman who was nine months pregnant and had plans to secure a job abroad as a nurse would decide to take her own life. Amitha, who had been employed as a nurse in Saudi Arabia, returned to Kerala in 2024, citing that the pay was not lucrative.

Around 9.15 pm on Sunday, she rang up her mother, Elsamma, who resides at Kadaplamattam, around 17 km from Amitha's home. The conversation was brief and hurried, according to Joy, Amitha's uncle. "She told her mother she was leaving and asked her parents to care for her two children. She told them that if they could not do so, they could put the kids in an orphanage, but not entrust them with anyone else," said Joy.

Elsamma takes care of Amitha's two children, who are 4 and 2.5 years old. Soon after the call, Elsamma panicked and tried calling Amitha's husband Akhil Thomas, who runs a catering business. After repeated attempts, she managed to talk to him and asked him to return to the house immediately.

"We couldn't reach both their phones after that. At 11 pm, Akhil called us and said that Amitha had tried hanging herself, and she was being taken to the hospital. We reached the hospital and the doctor said that Amitha was brought dead," Joy said. Amitha was found hanging from the ceiling fan in the bedroom.

Amitha and Akhil were schoolmates at Vayala. They fell in love during their school days, and the families agreed to their marriage. Amitha completed a course in general nursing in Andhra and got a job there. She returned home after marriage and got a job in Saudi Arabia. Amitha came to her parents' house at Kadaplamattam a week ago.

"She would occasionally hint at certain issues in her married life, but she never opened up because she didn't want to bother her parents. Her parents are daily-wage labourers and they struggled a lot to raise them, get them educated and marry them off. She had told her parents that she didn't have any gold left with her, which was bought at the time of her marriage," Joy said. Amitha has a sister, Amala.

The family has filed a complaint at the Kadathuruthy police station seeking a probe into the alleged involvement of Akhil in Amitha's death. Kadathuruthy police said they have registered a case of unnatural death. "The autopsy will be done today. We are looking into the complaint. As of now, no other charge has been filed against anyone," said a police official investigating the case.

The family members who accompanied cops to her room at Kuruppanthara noticed files and documents related to a job vacancy abroad. "She was a very bold woman. She wanted to go abroad and take care of her children. We need to know what suddenly prompted her to take this extreme step," another relative of Amitha said. The police have collected Elsamma and Joy's statements.