CHENNAI: An adamant love triangle, which led to the suicide of a girl, an engineering student, put through two of her friends in a court battle spanning 10 years. Finally, thanks to the absence of evidence, call records and credible witnesses against them, the two young men were acquitted of the suicide abetment charge on Feb 10.
E Sumithra, a first-year engineering student at a private college in Kattankulathur, was set to marry her relative and classmate, M Anandhan. With their family approval, they were expecting to wed after graduation.
However, K Ilayaraaja, a neighbour and a close friend, also expressed his affection for her and proposed marriage. Though Sumithra declined, she continued to be in touch with him as a friend. This caused emotion frictions, with Anandhan asking her to cut ties with Ilayaraaja, while the latter kept proposing to her.
On July 13, 2014, Anandhan and Ilayaraaja confronted each other near their college and got engaged in a heated argument requiring bystanders to intervene. That night, both men called Sumithra repeatedly, each demanding that she sever contact with the other.
The calls, which began around midnight, continued until 6am.
At 7.15am on July 14, Sumithra’s mother knocked on her bedroom door but received no response. When her parents broke it open, they found her dead.
The Thoraipakkam police, after an initial inquiry, slapped an abetment case against both Anandhan and Ilayaraaja, then aged 23 and 24 years.
However, when the case went to trial at Chengalpet mahila court, judge M Ezhilarasi questioned the prosecution’s claims. Sumithra’s father, Ezhumalai, stated in his complaint that he did not know why his daughter took her own life.
Further weakening the case, Vaishali, a friend of Sumithra and a key prosecution witness, denied in court that Sumithra expressed distress about harassment from the accused.
On its part, the prosecution failed to produce call records. Despite the case relying on the claim that both accused pressured Sumithra over the phone that night, the police neither retrieved nor presented call detail records (CDR) for verification. Without them, there was no evidence that the accused even spoke to her before her death.
After nearly a decade, both men were acquitted on Feb 10.