NEW DELHI: A 27-year search for Reji, a murder convict awarded life term, finally led to her arrest last June. But Supreme Court Friday suspended her sentence and agreed to test whether Kerala HC took the correct call in Sept 1996, saying there is evidence to suggest she may have been a minor while committing the crime on Feb 11, 1990. In 1993, a trial court had acquitted Reji of murdering Mariamma (61), her employer, in Alappuzha’s Mavelikkara. The case then went to HC.
Kerala woman altered name, changed jobs to evade arrest
According to prosecution records, Reji was 18 at the time of committing the murder and she allegedly stole a gold chain and earrings from the victim. The prosecution appealed against the trial court acquitting her, after which Kerala high court on Sept 11, 1996, overturned the order to convict her and awarded life term. However, police drew a blank as she disappeared from her native town immediately after the HC verdict.
Police, who only had a 1990 photograph of Reji with them, failed to trace her for 27 years. They said she changed her name, married, had children, and kept shifting her profession and residence to evade arrest – from Kottayam to Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadi to Kothamangalam to Adivad by working as a domestic help and also sales woman in a shop.
She was finally arrested on June 25, 2023, at Adivad at Pallarimangalam in Ernakulam’s Pothanikkad, where she was living with her family under an assumed name, ‘Mini Raju’. Reji movedSC in April last year challenging her conviction, claiming she was a minor at the time of commission of the crime. SC had on Sept 24 last year summoned the trial court records and translated copies of witness depositions. On Friday, a bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar perused the trial court records.
“We are ordering the suspension of her sentence. The trial court would enlarge her on bail pending the adjudication of her appeal after imposing appropriate terms and conditions,” SC said and posted the matter for final hearing in the third week of Feb.