A court in Kollam on Monday sentenced a man and his mother to life imprisonment for starving his wife to death over dowry in this district in 2019.
S Subash, the judge of the Additional District and Sessions Court-IV, also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh each on the convicts -- Chandulal (36) and his mother Geetha (62), special prosecutor Mahendra K B said.
The victim, 28-year-old Thushara, was reduced to a 'bag of bones' and had died due to starvation enforced by her husband and mother-in-law for dowry.
The case had caused significant public outrage in Kerala.
"This is a case which has no precedence in our country," Advocate Mahendra said.
There have been killings in the name of dowry, but this is perhaps the first time a case has emerged in which a woman, a mother of two, was forced to starve to death, he told reporters.
The court accepted the arguments raised by the prosecution and punished the guilty, as it found sections 304 (B) and 302 of the IPC applicable in the case, he said.
Thushara, a native of Karunagappally near Kollam, was denied proper food for days and survived only on soaked rice and sugar syrup before she breathed her last at a government hospital in Kollam.
At the time of her death, around midnight on March 21, 2019, due to illness and uneasiness, the woman weighed just 2021 kg.
The torture of the woman came to light during a probe conducted by the police after her death.
Thushara's husband, Chandulal, and his mother, Geetha, were soon arrested in connection with the case.
The couple had married in 2013. -- PTI
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