Attingal twin murder death for Nino Mathew, double life term for Anushanthi

The Thriruvananthapuram Principal sessions judge on Monday awarded death sentence to the prime accused Nino Mathew in the Attingal twin murder case.Calling it a rarest of rare crime Judge V Shircyalso awarded co-convict Anu Shanthi to life saying she is an insult to motherhood.Both the accused also have to pay a fine of Rs 50 lakh.The Thiruvananthapuram Principal Sessions court today found former Technopark employees Nino Mathew and Anushanthi guilty of twin murder of Anushanthi's mother-in-law Omana, and her three-year-old daughter Swastika. While Nino Mathew was awarded a death sentence, Anushanthi was sentenced to double life imprisonment. After the prosecution examined 49 witnesses, 85 exhibits and 41 material objects, Judge V Shircy found Anushanthi equally guilty as she was aware of Nino Mathew's plans. The duo has been charged of murder, conspiracy, attempt to destroy evidence and theft. The twin murder happened in April 2014 in Kerala's Attingal when Anushanthi's husband Lijeesh objected to her extra marital affair with Nino Mathew. However, Lijeesh escaped the murder attempt and sustained injuries. Subseqeuntly, Nino Mathew and Anushanthi were arrested. The police recovered murder weapons from his Mathew's house - a matchete and a baseball bat, a towel that was used to wipe the weapons clean and gold ornaments that he stole from the bodies to make it look like a robbery attempt. Nino Mathew had told the court that he did not commit the crime and had requested the court to give him minimum punishment. Background

Former Technopark employees Nino Mathew and Anu Shanthi were found guilty of murder by the Thriruvananthapuram Principal sessions judge on Friday, on charges of twin murder of Anu Shanthi’s mother-in-law Omana (60), and her three-year-old daughter Swastika. The murders happened in April 2014 in Attingal, after Anu Shanthi’s husband Lijeesh objected to her extra marital affair with Nino Mathew. Lijeesh, however, escaped the murder attempt and sustained injuries. Nino Mathew was nabbed the same day and after he confessed to the crime, Anu Shanthi was also arrested. After recording their arrests, the police recovered murder weapons from his house- a matchete and a baseball bat, a towel that was used to wipe the weapons clean and gold ornaments that he stole from the bodies to make it look like a robbery attempt.

The duo has been charged of murder, conspiracy, attempt to destroy evidence and theft. After the prosecution examined as many as 49 witnesses, 85 exhibits and 41 material objects, Judge V Shircy found Anu Shanthi equally guilty as she was aware of Nino Mathew’s plans. A case of transmitting obscene material in electronic form was also charged against the duo, after the police found self-shot videos of his sexual acts with Anu Shanthi in his laptop and mobile phone that were recovered. The crime was solved within 24 hours and charge sheet filed on the 83rd day of the crime. A day after the macabre incident, police arrested Anu on Thursday, for aiding the murder of her 3.5-year-old daughter and mother-in-law. Her husband has been undergoing treatment for injuries sustained in the attack. Police have found that Anu had during the past week sent several photographs of her house, various rooms, the premises and also a small bylane along a paddy field nearby, through which Nino escaped after committing the crime, through WhatsApp . ''Nino had used these pictures as a blueprint... He had escaped easily from the neighbourhood after the murders with the help of them," Attingal circle inspector M Anil Kumar said.

Anu had told the police that it was to secure the custody of her daughter, Swastika, that she asked Nino's help to 'eliminate' her husband Lijeesh from her life. Earlier, when Lijeesh came to know of her illicit relationship with Nino, he had told her to move out, leaving the little girl. But, ironically, the girl was killed along with her grandmother while Lijeesh survived. Police said Nino killed Swastika and her grandmother Omana so that there would not be any witness. Nino, who is also married, was not in good terms with his wife. His wife also worked in a prominent IT firm at Technopark. Nino was living alone in a room on the first floor of his residence while his wife lived in the ground floor with their four-year-old daughter and Nino's aged parents ever since she came to know about Nino's affair with Anu.

Attingal DSP R Prathapan Nair said Nino, a soft-spoken guy and who maintained very few friendships, deliberately committed the crime in a barbaric fashion to derail the probe. Both Nino and Anu were confident that the police would never suspect two IT professionals, who belonged to the upper strata of the society, to commit such a crime, he said. The police on Thursday took Nino to his residence at Kulathoor and recovered a bag containing the murder weapons, which he had hid in his wardrobe. The bag contained a matchet used to hack the victims, a golf stick cut short to fit inside his bag and which was used to bludgeon Lijeesh's mother Omana, the remaining portion of the club, a hacksaw blade used to cut the club, a towel that was used to wipe blood from the matchet and club, a pair of trousers and a shirt, the nuptial chain of Omana and a gold necklace and bracelet of the toddler.

The arrests were recorded by a team led by rural SP Rajpal Meena. Police have charged Anu under IPC section 120 (b) (conspiracy) and 115 (abetment of crime) and Nino under sections 120 (b), 449 (house-trespass to commit offence), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 404 (dishonest misappropriation of property possessed by deceased person at the time of death) and 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous means). Both of them were produced in the court and remanded in judicial custody. The mortal remains of Omana and Swastika were laid to rest in the presence of a huge crowd on their house premises at Alamcode on the day.