Woman held for poisoning her baby boy to death

MADURAI: According to police, Karthika, a 21-year-old woman, was living with her husband Jegatheesh and two children Sanjana and Saran aged three and one-and-a-half years respectively at Kolakachi near Marthandam.

Around two months ago, the woman developed a relationship with a man identified as Sunil (24), a resident of Marayapuram near Kolakachi. She used to send voice messages to him frequently, but over the last 10 days there’s been no exchange of communication between them. Police said that Sunil after learning that Karthika was a married woman started avoiding her. At this point, Karthika felt the children to be a hindrance for her affair and decided to kill them. As planned, she mixed poison in the food and fed it to both the kids around 11 am on Wednesday. While Sanjana survived the attempt after treatment at a private hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala, Saran died.

Initially Karthika claimed that Saran was unwell for some days and that is why he died without responding to treatment. Following this, Marthandam police then filed a case of suspicious death.

However, some neighbours raised doubts about Karthika’s claims and suspected her in the death of the boy. During further investigations, police found out that Karthika had really fed poison to the children. Subsequently, cops altered it into a murder case and arrested the woman. Cops have also picked up Sunil for questioning.