Daijiworld Media Network - Thiruvananthapuram (SP)
Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 16: A woman civil police officer working in Valliunnam station was killed with sharp weapon and then torched by an employee of her own department on Saturday June 15. The victim, Soumya Pushpakaran, was a resident of Vallikunnam.
The accused in the case has been identified as Ajaz.
Ajaz, who works as a traffic policeman attached to Aluva police station, was hospitalised with 40 percent burns. The police are yet to establish the motive of the crime. It is said that Ajaz, a bachelor, was training instructor for the deceased in the police academy at Thrissur in 2013.
Soumya had attended a camp for student police cadets at the government higher secondary school at Vattakkad. When she was returning home thereafter in the afternoon, she was knocked down, waylaid, hit repeatedly with a knife and then burnt alive after pouring petrol by the accused, who reportedly was following the lady in a car.
Soumya has left behind three children and husband, who works in a foreign country.
Vallikunnam police sub-inspector, Rajan Babu, said that the accused would be arrested immediately after he is discharged from the hospital. He added that the police personnel are probing the incident from all angles. District superintendent of police, K M Tomy, said that Ajaz, who lived at Kochi, was on leave since the last some days. He said that the police cannot confirm whether the two were in an affair as the department does not have any information about it as of now.
Soumya was a sincere and hard working family-oriented policewoman and was working in Vallikunnam station since the last three years. She was assigned duty as drill inspector for the student police at KKM government higher secondary school at Vallikunnam. When she was knocked down by Ajaz who followed her in his car, attacked her with a knife in the neck region and torched her, people who heard her wails, rushed there. But her condition was so bad that she had died on the spot by then. Although Ajaz tried to escape, the people caught hold of him and handed him over to the police.