JOIN US“We will never forgive Gangamma for poisoning Ranjan,” said Gangamma’s relatives when they learnt of the incident.
Sharing their grief with Deccan Herald at the Rajarajeshwari Medical College and Hospital, they said: “Only a cruel woman could murder her son. We had many plans for his future. We wanted to admit him to school this year. Gangamma’s immature act has scarred us.”
“He was such a cute and intelligent boy. We saw his father Hanumantharaju in him. We rushed Ranjan to as many as 10 hospitals late Friday night, begging doctors to save him.
We also loved Gangamma, as she was the only daughter of Kote Lakkamma and Nagaraj. We did everything to keep her happy. We never expected this kind of cowardly act from her,” said a relative of Hanumantharaju.
The relatives, who were waiting outside the mortuary to receive the bodies, said Hanunatharaju’s parents took Gangamma and her mother Lakkamma in since they wanted to compensate for the misdeeds of their son.
They rented out a house for Gangamma, requested Lakkamma to stay with her, bore all the expenses of the family and even took up the responsibility of raising Ranjan. They even agreed to get her married again and accept her child.
“Anybody else would have sent her out of the house. And this is what they get in return,” a family member said.
Another family member said: “We would have got the child aborted, if she had told us a few months earlier. In fact, all elders in the family stood by her when she revealed her affair.”
Web of lies
Gangamma maintained complete secrecy about her affair. Even her mother did not know it.
She gave excuses when she stopped getting her monthly periods. She stopped participating in family functions. When her family members noticed physical changes in her, she told them it was because of acidity and said the medications she was taking were for the same reason.
“We decided to accept Isha. We requested her to convince him to marry her. We told her that we would approach the police if he refuses to do so.
She told us that she would convince him and come back with some positive news on Monday. We were shocked when her uncle Veeranna called us and disclosed the incident late Friday night,” said Puttaraju, a family friend.
She called up Isha nine times within a span of two hours on Friday night. She was heartbroken when he refused to marry her.
Isha absconded around 10 pm, after he heard of Gangamma’s suicide. “The family will not spare him and will ensure he’s punished,” he added.
Gangamma and Lakkamma seem to have thought through their plan.
Lakkamma, who worked as an attender in East West College, knew of chemicals and poison to kill ants and cockroaches. She may have brought the poison from the college and consumed it.