Women's panel takes up case of man killing wife using snake

Kollam: The Kerala State Women’s Commission on Monday took up on its own the case of a 25-year-old woman who died near here after her husband allegedly let a cobra bite her in her sleep recently.

The case has been taken under various provisions of Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act against Sooraj, the husband, and his family, a member of the women’s commission Shahida Kamal, said in a press release.

Sooraj allegedly killed Uthra by letting the cobra bite her in her sleep early this month.

Police cracked the case following suspicion raised by Uthra’s family as it was the second time she suffered a snake-bite in three months.

Meanwhile, the district child welfare committee agreed to the request of the woman’s family to hand over the one- year-old child of the couple to them.

Earlier, police took Sooraj to Uthra’s house, where she was bitten by the snake, for collectingevidence.

Police had on Sunday arrested Sooraj, a private bank employee from Adoor in Pathanamthitta district, and a snake- catcher who supplied the cobra and a Russell’s viper, both highly poisonous, on charges of killing the woman.

Parents of the woman had approached the police saying there was something suspicious about the death of their daughter on May 7 as she had survived a snake-bite barely a couple of months ago.

The couple was married for around two years and some financial angle was behind the killing, police said adding Sooraj had received 98 sovereigns of gold jewellery as dowry.

Police said they found digital evidence on the man’s mobile phone using which he had been watching snake-related videos on YouTube for the last three months, apparently to get trained in handling them.