Two lives in Kerala ‘human sacrifice’: One left trail of tears, other of hope

According to police, both sold lottery tickets and were lured to the healer Bhagaval Singh’s house by Muhammed Shafi who ran an eatery in Kochi they used to frequent. The police said Shafi had posed as a tantrik before the healer and his wife Laila, promising prosperity after the sacrifice — all three were arrested last week.

For Rosli, the end on June 8 was a full stop to a life of despair — abandoned by her mother; a victim of domestic violence later. “My mother never had a happy moment in her life. She was orphaned by her own family… It was a chain of tragedies,’’ says Rosli’s daughter Manju.

Padmam’s end on that cot, on September 26, severed a dream midway — having settled the loan taken for her elder son’s marriage, she was working hard to ensure that her second son could marry without having to borrow money from anyone.

The victims Rosli and Padmam. (PTI)

“In March, she took a break and came to stay with my elder brother, who is a school teacher in Arcot (Tamil Nadu). But she decided to start working again in June to earn for my marriage. She also wanted to build a second floor at our house,” says Selvaraj, Padmam’s second son who works in a low-end job at an IT company in Chennai.

Police sniffer dogs were brought in following suspicion that there could be more victims.

Rosli went missing in the first week of June. Her partner, Sajeesh, told police that she had been living with him for the past seven years at a rented house in Kalady in Ernakulam. He also said that she had gone to meet her relatives in Kottayam.

It was on July 26 that Rosli’s daughter Manju, who had moved to Thrissur with her second husband and son in March, went to the Kalady police station with Sajeesh and complained that her mother was missing. The police were able to crack the case while tracking Padmam’s trail to that remote house in Elanthoor.

Police were searching the area with sniffer dogs

According to Manju, Rosli’s mother Rosamma belonged to a “well-settled” Christian family in Alappuzha. “My grandmother became pregnant with my mother at the age of 17, before her marriage. Soon after that, she was married off to a person in Idukki. My mother, a little girl then, was left in the care of relatives in Alappuzha and Kottayam. She was abandoned and grew up in the homes of those relatives, looking after their children and doing household work. She never went to school,” says Manju.

According to her, Rosli was married at the age of 17 to a farm worker, Sunny Varghese, from Idukki. “She was subjected to domestic violence. Sunny was an alcoholic, and did not care for me or my elder brother Sanju. About 20 years ago, my mother walked out. There was no divorce, she just took me and left. We moved to Kochi, where she worked as a home nurse. I stayed in various hostels, continuing my studies,’’ says Manju.

Rosli worked as a domestic help and home nurse, shuttling from one house to another. “She also kept moving from one rented premise to another, depending on the work,” says Sajeesh.

Healer and masseur Bhagaval Singh (left), his wife Laila (right), were arrested in connection with the killings of two women who had been missing. (File)

Manju, meanwhile, earned a B.Ed in Computer Science and seven years ago joined a school in UP as a teacher. “Rosli was alone. At the time, I was living near her rented home in Kalady. That was when we became close,” says Sajeesh, a mason. Once, when Rosli was admitted to hospital, Sajeesh was the bystander. “She had no one else… Soon, we started living together,” he says.

According to Manju, however, Rosli’s “troubles” did not end there. “He (Sajeesh) would not allow her to speak to others, even to me over the phone. He would insist that my mother switch off her mobile phone. My mother complained to local police about his torture. But a compromise was reached every time,’’ she says.

Sajeesh admits “there were issues” but claimed “such incidents were common” in a relationship. “On June 8, she left home… A day after, I tried to contact her, but her phone was switched off… I did not know any of her relatives in Kottayam, and her daughter refused to talk to me,’’ he says.

Sajeesh and Manju claim they did not know about Rosli selling lottery tickets — she told them that she was “selling health care products at homes”. “I was last with her for two months this year… as always, she lamented about her life. Just months before she went missing, she told me that if she had a father, her life would have been different,’’ says Manju.

Over 300 km north of Thrissur is Dharmapuri, from where Padmam set out to work 15 years ago for her two sons and husband, a daily wage labourer until age confined him to their home. “My mother started working for a salary of Rs 150 per day,” recalls Selvaraj.

“She used to stay in a single room at a lodge that housed migrant labourers from Tamil Nadu. Her sister Palani Amma is also a labourer… My mother started selling lottery tickets in the past six months when there was no demand for labourers,” he says, speaking over the phone from Ernakulam where he has reached with his elder brother Settu and aunt to collect Padmam’s remains.

“She used to check on me every day before going to sleep,” says Selvaraj. Now, all he wants is for her remains to be handed over. “My father is waiting back home.”