SSLC student among seven burned alive in Madurai's Sedapatti

MADURAI: Had she lived, she would have been celebrating her SSLC results on Thursday but P Sangeetha, 17, was one among the seven members of a family who were murdered in Kumarapuram near Sedapatti on Wednesday.
After her uncle Kannan refused to live with his wife Pandeeshwari, the woman and her relatives allegedly torched the house they were sleeping in in the early hours of Wednesday.The entire family, including Sangeetha, perished in the fire. The gruesome murders shook the village.
The woman along with her brother and mother locked the door from outside before spraying kerosene and petrol into the house and setting it on fire.
When the SSLC results were published on Thursday, Sangeetha, who was a student of Sedapatti Government Higher Secondary School, was found to have secured 325 marks. The headmistress of the school K Palaniammal said she had scored 68 marks in Tamil, 49 in English, 75 in Mathematics, 87 in Science and 46 in Social Science.
“She had secured relatively good marks. It is very unfortunate that she had perished and her life snubbed in such manner,” Palaniammal said.
Police sources said Pandeeswari along with her mother and brother were produced before Peraiyur Magistrate court and remanded on Thursday. The women were sent to Trichy Women’s Prison while the woman’s brother Rajapandi was locked up in Melur Sub Jail.
Madurai SP Vijayendra S Bidari said they had been booked under IPC 302 (murder), 436 (setting house on fire) and section 120 B for criminal conspiracy. Further enquiry is still on, he said.
Pandeeswari apparently confessed to police she was determined to live with Kannan and not ready to spare him to live with anyone else. Since he refused to live with her in spite of repeated appeals and his family supported him, she decided to eliminate them all.
Her mother Murugeswari is reported to have told police that she had lived an agonising life as a single parent after her husband deserted the family. She could not stand it that her daughter was also heading in the same direction and decided to support her daughter, police sources said.
On Wednesday, all seven members of the family were cremated in Madurai after an autopsy since there were not many relatives around to take the dead bodies to their hometown. The villagers, many of whom were too poor to travel all the way to the city, stayed back and did not attend the funeral in Madurai.