She was in the prime of life, married with three children, and as a policewoman, a source of inspiration for countless other women. But last Saturday, Soumya Pushpakaran was brutally hacked with a machete and burnt alive by her senior colleague NA Ajaz in broad daylight. The accused too suffered burn injuries and has passed away as per latest reports.

Why was Soumya murdered? Well, initial media reports were quite tight-lipped about the whole affair, with Times of India even omitting the name of the attacker from its initial report filed on the day of the gruesome crime (secular censoring).

But this much was clear – NA Ajaz had planned everything meticulously.

He first rammed his car into Soumya’s scooty as she was returning from duty around 3.30 pm. The distraught woman tried to run away but he chased and hacked her with a machete/sword. He then returned to his car to get the two petrol cans he was carrying. Finally, he set Soumya on fire and suffered burns himself as well.

Kerala police was predictably cautious, and our media too decided to exercise self-restraint for once and report only the official version. No one from the mainstream media houses like NDTV, India Today, ABP, Indian Express etc decided to send reporters to talk to the victim’s family, gauge the mahaul (local vibe) or take the CPM Government to task for what was the 3rd incident of a young woman being burnt alive by a stalker in Kerala, in just the last 3 months.

Even the mainstream Kerala media was treading with caution – most of them are anyway aligned with the left-liberal clique, and after all the victim here wasn’t a Junaid Khan or Pehlu Khan where the beef-lynching template could be unhesitatingly applied, facts & police statements be damned.

It was left to lesser-known outlets like Pen News, or the South-India centric NewsMinute to present the truth, gleaned from talking to Soumya’s mother, her kids and in-laws (her husband works as a plumber in Libya), and police sources. This is the story which emerged –

1.) The two had come to know each other around five years ago when Soumya underwent training at the police camp in Thrissur when she joined the force and Ajaz was a trainer.

2.) At one stage Ajaz lent Soumya Rs 1.25 lakh (for house construction) which she tried to return to him. When he refused to accept it, she deposited the amount in his bank account which he immediately transferred to her account. She event went along with her mother Indira to personally return the money, but Ajaz refused to accept and instead asked her to marry him.

3.) Indira told police that Ajaz had been forcing Soumya to marry him. He used to regularly call her over phone and harass her. When Soumya blocked his number, he began to call from other numbers. Even her children had heard her having arguments with Ajaz over phone and crying till late at night.

4.) This was not the first time Ajaz had attacked Soumya. Her mother Indira told media, “He did this to my daughter earlier too. Once he had poured petrol on her and beaten her with shoes on her back. I then told her that I would speak to him, but she objected fearing that if I intervened things would get worse. Later she was somehow hoping that he would become a bit calm.”

The most detailed report one finds is by Manorama Online – they have spoken at length to Soumya’s in-laws who bemoan the fact that she never told them about her harassment by Ajaz. Soumya’s 13-year-old son chillingly recounts how his mother feared being killed by Ajaz –

“Mother used to cry herself to sleep at night. When I asked her why she cried, she would hug me tightly and say, ‘Son, if ever your mother gets murdered, the killer would be Ajaz’.”

For leftist propaganda newspaper The Hindu, the crime is still ‘alleged‘ despite the accused NA Ajaz having confessed to the murder in his statement before a magistrate. A lot of left-liberal outlets like The Hindu are also reporting Ajaz’s name as ‘Ajas’ – a casual discrepancy or an attempt to secularize the crime? We leave it to readers to decide.

This tweet says it best –

from the name, soumya is an OBC ezhava. gruesome murders of hindu women in kerala, eg. of jisha (rape/murder by muslim migrant laborer) and sowmya (pushed off train, raped, head bashed in with stone by charlie thomas) are not causes for media or placard-holders.

— Prof राजीवः श्रीनिवासः (@RajeevSrinivasa) June 16, 2019

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