A youth has been found guilty of murdering his wife by inflicting snake bites in Kerala's Kollam district.
Uthara, 25, a native of Anchal in the suburbs of the district, was found dead in her house after suffering snake bites on May 7, 2020.
Police investigation found that her husband, Sooraj, 27, used a snake to murder Uthara, who had some deformities, with the intention of grabbing her wealth.
An additional sessions court in Kollam on Monday found him guilty. The sentence will be pronounced on Wednesday.
The case was considered as the first murder in Kerala in which a snake was used. Uthra had survived a similar attempt by Sooraj earlier. While a viper was used initially, a cobra was used in the second attempt. Her family became suspicious over the death and hence sought a police investigation.
Suresh, who supplied snakes to Sooraj, was initially made an accused in the case. But since he was found to be unaware of the murder plan, he was made a prime witness.
As part of gathering evidence, the investigation team also recreated the murder using a live snake and dummy of the victim to find the pattern of the snake bites. It was done with the help of forest officials. A postmortem examination of the cobra used for the killing was also conducted as part of the investigation.
As many as 87 witnesses, 288 documentary evidence and 40 material evidences were produced by the prosecution. A police team led by SP S Harishankar investigated the case.
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