‘Drowned daughter first by forcefully holding her head underwater, pushed son down by holding him by the back’ 

PALAKKAD: Police said the woman in a very brutal manner killed her five and three-year-old children at Kozhinjampara in Palakkad. The two identified as Jennifer Juliet and Robin Christopher, children of John Kumar and Nivedya of Manalkad, Vadakarapathy, Pazhaniyar Palayam, were found dead on Tuesday in a water tank in the bathroom of their rented house at Kurangad, Menonpara. Nivedya (33), arrested in the incident, was produced before a magistrate and remanded in custody.

Nivedya told police that she was motivated to kill the children because she thought that they would be an obstacle for her to live an independent life in the future. She forcefully held her elder daughter Jennifer's head underwater while the child was playing near the cement tank in the bathroom. After making sure that her daughter was dead, Nivedya said she picked up her son, who was playing nearby, pushed him into the water and held him down by his back. However, police have not fully taken this into confidence.

The tank was only about three-quarters full of water. The post-mortem report stated that the cause of death was water entering the lungs. There were no other injuries or signs of physical force on their bodies.

Police had initially suspected that the children might have accidentally fallen into the water tank while playing. However, following a complaint from the children's paternal aunt Bensy and other relatives that the deaths could have been murders, Nivedya was questioned again. Although she initially denied the allegations, she later confessed to the crime.