A day after woman civil police officer Soumya Pushpakaran was killed after being set on fire by a man at Thekkemuri in Vallikunnam , the police said she was murdered for rejecting his marriage proposal.
District Police Chief K.M. Tomy on Sunday told The Hindu that attacker Ajas, 33, also a civil police officer, with the Aluva traffic station, was in love with the victim. “They had known each other from their time at the police academy. It doesn’t mean that were having an affair. Soumya had borrowed ₹1.25 lakh from Ajas. When she tried to return the amount, he didn’t accept it and instead proposed marriage. Soumya, married and a mother of three children, rejected the proposal,” Mr. Tomy said.
Arrest soon
The DPC said the arrest of Ajas, admitted to Government Medical College, Alappuzha, with burns, would be recorded soon.
Indira, Soumya’s mother, said her daughter had been threatened and attacked by Ajas earlier too. “A couple of weeks ago, she transferred the borrowed money to Ajas’s bank account. But he transferred it back. We then met him in Kochi and tried to hand over the money, but he refused. He said he wanted to marry her. He had earlier attacked my daughter and threatened to kill her husband,” Indira said.
‘Police were informed’
Indira said they had informed the Vallikkunnam police about the threat. Soumya’s elder son also said his mother had told him about the threat from Ajas.
The funeral will be held after the arrival of her husband, who is employed overseas.
Soumya, 37, a CPO with the Vallikunnam police station, was hacked and set ablaze by Ajas on Saturday. She was on a two-wheeler and Ajas, driving a rented car, dashed her bike. He hacked her, poured oil on her and set her afire at a place barely 25 metres from her house.
