Chargesheet filed in Alphine murder case

KOZHIKODE: District crime branch team of

Kozhikode

rural police, probing the

Koodathayi

murder case, on Saturday, filed a

chargesheet

in another murder case. The team probing the murder of two-year-old Alphine, the fifth victim in Koodathayi multiple murders, filed the chargesheet before the Thamarassery munsif magistrate court after winding up the probe.


As per the chargesheet, Jolly Joseph is the first accused in the case. She is the second wife of Alphine’s father Shaju Zacharia.

The chargesheet contains the statements of 139 witnesses. “We interrogated many persons and by connecting their statements we got a clear picture of the murder,” said district police chief (Kozhikode rural) K G Simon during a news conference.

While some of the witnesses saw Jolly taking two slices of bread, some others saw her lacing something on the bread, cleaning her hands and handing over the bread to Alphine’s aunt, Simon said.

The investigating officers are confident of proving all the murders as they have received a report from the forensic lab confirming the presence of

cyanide

in the body of Sily. The examination was carried out using the samples collected by exhuming bodies.

Simon said that Jolly lacked any guilty feeling after poisoning the child, citing her return to Shaju’s house with food when the child was hospitalized. “Jolly wanted to kill Alphine as she thought the girl would be a burden on them when she would marry Shaju,” said Simon. The district police chief after filing the chargesheet in Sily murder case had confirmed that Jolly murdered Sily in a bid to marry Shaju.

The accused, according to police, used to carry cyanide in a small bottle inside her bag. This bag was seized by the police during the investigation into Sily murder.

The senior officer also lauded the role of doctors, who helped them in the probe by collecting samples from the exhumed bodies, and confirming the cause of death of Alphine.

The second accused in the case is M S Mathew, an employee of a jewellery shop who arranged cyanide for Jolly, and Praji Kumar, a goldsmith, who sold cyanide to Mathew. While Jolly is accused of intentionally giving poisoned food to Alphine to murder her, other two are accused of providing cyanide to Jolly.

The district crime branch, probing the Koodathayi case, have already filed chargesheet in Roy and Sily murder cases.

As per the chargesheet, Jolly murdered Alphine in her bid to marry Shaju. It was on May 3, 2014 that Alphine died after consuming bread laced with cyanide.

The chargesheet has the statements of the relatives of Sily and Shaju, parents of Alphine. They also collected the statement of many who attended the first holy communion of the elder son of Shaju and Sily. It was on the day of the Holy Communion that the child was given poisoned bread. The child breathed her last two days after hospitalization.


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