Kothamangalam suicide: Close friend revealed alleged house-arrest and harassment, family was in dark

The suicide note of a Kothamangalam native, who was found hanging in her bedroom on Saturday, ends with an apology to her mother and brother. "I'm going to be with my pappa," her letter reads. Her mother, a housemaid, was at work when she received a forwarded message from her boyfriend Rameez's mother on Saturday. It was around noon that she noticed the photo of the letter on her phone. She immediately hired an auto and rushed home, only to find her daughter hanging from the hook of the ceiling fan, her brother said.

The family had barely recovered from the death of her father when another tragedy struck them. Before taking the extreme step, she reportedly wrote a letter, took a photo, and sent it to Rameez's mother. While the police recovered the suicide note, the family was still in the dark about the sudden provocation that led her to die by suicide. They had known about her relationship with Rameez. According to the brother, the families had agreed to the marriage and to the demand regarding religious conversion.

After the funeral on Sunday, a close friend, who is from Adimali, reportedly told her family how Rameez persuaded the girl to go with him. The family was told that she was going to her friend’s house in Adimali last week.

"Rameez reached there and told her to go with him to get married and register it. While her friend and her husband told Rameez that they would go along with her, Rameez resisted. Later, she sent a message to her friend saying she was locked up in his house. When Rameez realised that she had informed her friend about being locked up, he took her back to Kothamangalam," the brother said.

She also sent a message to her mother about the registered marriage. Her brother said they were upset over Rameez's behaviour, as they had agreed to all his family’s demands. "We only said that we would hold the engagement as per our tradition, and they could get married in their way. Since our father died only three months ago, we asked them to wait for one year before the engagement. His family agreed upon all this. In the meantime, we learned that he was arrested for immoral trafficking. She was hurt, and she told him that she wouldn’t agree to convert. But when he came to her friend’s house, she went with him on the promise of marriage," said the brother.

She reportedly wrote in her suicide note that she was being forced into religious conversion. Kothamangalam police said the case, initially registered as unnatural death, will be changed to abetment of suicide against Rameez.