Kasaragod/Coorg: Parents receive skull of teenage daughter killed 18 years ago

PTI, Nov 13, 2024, 1:59 PM IST

Image for representation

Kasaragod: Hands of the couple that received a tiny cardboard box from a Kasargod court trembled with emotions and their eyes welled up. Because the box contained portions of the skull of their beloved daughter murdered 18 years ago in Goa, when she was just 13.

According to police, 13-year-old Sofia was killed in December 2006 in Goa while she was serving as a maid in the house of K C Hamsa, a contractor from Kasargod. She allegedly suffered severe burns in the kitchen and Hamsa, out of fear of punishment, killed the girl and chopped her body into pieces before dumping them in an under-construction dam site in Goa, they said. The mortal remains were recovered in 2008. Though the accused was arrested later and a local court sentenced him to death in 2015, the Kerala High Court commuted his punishment into life imprisonment in 2019.

Despite court punishing the accused, parents couldn’t find peace as they thought their daughter deserved a formal, respectful send-off, at least. The family of the girl, hailing from Coorg in neighbouring Karnataka wanted the court to handover the mortal remains of their daughter, so that they could perform last rites according to their religious customs.

The Principal Sessions Court here accepted their request and handed them over the skull of the girl on Monday. Besides her mother Ayesha and father Moithu, people from Aiyangeri in Coorg, a few close relatives of the deceased girl were also reportedly present when the skull was handed over by the court. The mortal remains were taken to their native place and buried in a local masjid there on Monday night itself, family sources said.

The skull and fragments of bones, which were recovered from an isolated place some time after the death of the girl, became evidence in the case of murder of the teenage girl.

After helping solve the case of gruesome murder the mortal remains made a last, sober travel to ‘its homeland’ in an attempt to bring some peace to the loved ones of the girl.