THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A man accused of cold-bloodedly murdering his wife and four children over a period of two weeks has been arrested. He has admitted that he had raped his 12-year-old daughter before strangling her to death, police in Kerala said yesterday.
“He suspected that the youngest child that the couple had when they were working in Andhra Pradesh three years ago was not his and he wanted to take revenge on his wife,” Superintendent of Police Vijay Sakhare told reporters in Palakkad.
“The killings were meticulously planned and executed. He wanted to marry his lover and live happily after wiping out the entire family. But the lover’s refusal to go with him after the gruesome murders spoiled his plans”.
According to the police, Rejikumar, 40, a rubber-tapping laborer at Pattambi since 2007, strangled his wife Lizzie on the night of July 8 after an altercation about his extramarital affair and dumped her in the septic tank of his house.
Two days later, he killed the two children staying with them, Amal (9) and Amanya (3), who were made to believe that their mother had gone to her native place in Kottayam.
He then put their bodies in gunny bags and hid them in a bush in the backyard of his rented house.
“He kept on working for more than a week as if nothing had happened and told his employer that his wife had gone to her native place. He was cool during these days and there was no reason to suspect anything,” the superintendent said.
On July 22, he went to the school attached to an orphanage in Kottayam where his other children, Amalu (12) and Amalya (8) were studying and fetched them saying that their mother had died and he wanted to take them to her funeral.
He then took them to his house in Pattambi some 200 km away where they also met the fate of other members of the family. Autopsy found that the elder child was raped five times before being strangled.
Rejikumar, a Hindu by birth met his Christian wife, a nursing student residing near his house in Pala, while he was studying for his bachelor’s degree in organic chemistry. Both families objected to their marriage. So they had to quit their studies and take up menial jobs to live. He converted to Christianity to please Lizzie’s family.
In 2002, the couple moved to Andhra Pradesh and worked there as teachers. Lizzie allegedly had an affair with another man and the third child was born out of that illicit relationship, Rejikumar told the police.
“He apparently moved to Malabar to work in the rubber plantation with the sole intention of taking revenge on his wife. For the neighbors, he was a well-mannered and hard-working man who had no vices like drinking or smoking. Within two months, his employer raised his salary to 7,000 rupees a month besides free housing,” Sakhare said.
“He started an affair with a neighbor six months back and they used to talk on their mobile phones almost every day. His wife found this out a few days before the killings. We found that his lover had no role in the killings. In fact, she backed out after she knew what had happened”.
Rejikumar was arrested at a bus stand in Kottayam after the local people, who had seen his photograph in newspapers, spotted him. He was brought to the scene of the crime the next day.
