Murder weapon is lethal Cobra
Last week 28-year-old Sooraj Kumar was given a rare double life sentence for killing his wife Uthra, by making a cobra bite her, leading to a grisly murder.
A sessions court in Kerala on Wednesday awarded life sentence to the victim’s husband for killing her using a cobra. The court had held the husband Sooraj S Kumar — guilty of murder, poisoning, destruction of evidence and also attempt to murder for his first try at killing his then 25-year old his wife `~Uthra- by using a viper.
In April 2020, Sooraj Kumar Paid £67 ( Rs.7000) to a snake catcher clandestinely for a cobra one of the venomous snakes in the world, inKerala, South India.
Sooraj and Uthrs had met two years earlier via the services of a matrimonial broker. Sooraj’s father was an auto-rickshaw driver and his mother a homemaker. Uthra who was three years younger than Sooraj suffered from learning disabilities, came from a significantly well off family, her mother was a retired school principal, father was a rubber trader
Sooraj drilled a hole in a plastic container for air to flow in and placed the cobra inside, and took it home. Thirteen days Suraj put the container in a bag and trudged to his in-laws’ home , 27 miles away, where his wife Uthra was recovering from a snake bite.It was her parent’s house Uthra returned to after being released from hospital, where she was treated for the snake bite. It had put her there for 52 days and required three painful surgeries to heal her affected leg. She had been bitten by a Russel viper – a highly venomous earth coloured snake responsible for thousands of deaths in India every year. Then on May 6th 2020, while Uthra was still recuperating, she accepted a glass of fruit juice from Sooraj which was laced with sedatives. Sooraj brought out the container with Cobra, overturned it, and dropped the five-foot-long snake on his sedated sleeping wife. The snake slithered away, but sooraj picked it up.
On May 7th 2020, Uthra was found dead due to snake bite in her house at Anchal in Quilon. Suraj who married Uthra for financial gain, killer her in a vicious planned murder, Kumar was trying to seize control of her family’s wealth. Their marriage involved in a big dowry a new car and £ £5000 (Rs 500, 000). and flung it on Uthra , but again it slithered off. Then Sooraj held the snake by the trademark hood and pressed it head near Uthra’s left arm, provoking the agitated cobra to use the fangs at the front of the mouth, biting her twice. Then it slinked off to a shelf in the room and stayed there all night. Sooraj then washed the juice glass and destroyed a stick he had used to safely handle the snake and deleted incriminating records on his mobile phone, according to investigators.
Uthra was found by her mother next day morning, with open mouth and left hand dangling on one side. The family rushed Uthra to hospital but was pronounced dead by poisoning and called the police.
Sooraj’s family was charged with conspiracy after some of Uthra’s gold was found buried near Sooraj’s home days after the murder.