A two-decade wait for justice continues

Thrissur, Kerala: Nearly twenty years after the death of nursing student Jeesamol P Devasia (21), her mother Binny Devasia is still fighting for justice.

On December 5, 2005, Jeesamol, a final-year nursing student at the San Jose Parish Hospital in Pavaratty, Thrissur, was found dead inside her hostel room. Hostel authorities claimed she had taken her own life after being caught cheating in a model examination. 

Her family has always alleged otherwise: that she was raped and murdered, and that evidence was destroyed to protect influential persons linked with the college. 

The years that followed took a heavy toll on Binny. She lost her husband in a train accident during the long struggle and says she received anonymous threats. When her remaining two children moved abroad for safety, she intensified her campaign for justice. With only an elementary education, Binny taught herself to read English police files at night with a dictionary, sold property to pay legal fees, and sought support from activists and lawyers, but insisted she would not stop.

A disputed case

On the evening of December 4, Jeesamol had been studying outside on the hostel verandah. She told her friends she would continue until she fell asleep and then lie down. Exams were due in a few days.

The next morning, according to the college, she sat for a model exam, was allegedly caught copying, and committed suicide. 

Jessamol’s family has disputed the college’s claim. 

“Why was a model exam being conducted twice? And why would a student who was preparing so diligently kill herself?” asked her uncle and local guardian, Antony Chittattukara, who lived barely three kilometres away from the nursing college.

The family also raised doubts about the college’s story. College authorities said she attended church that morning and came to the exam in the same dress she had worn the previous day, in which she was later found hanging.

Antony, who could have reached the college immediately, was not informed of the incident. By the time he and Binny reached the hostel, Jeesamol’s body had been washed, her dress changed, and the room cleaned. Hostel authorities claimed they had to wash her because she had defecated.

Antony later said they saw tubes used to administer glucose tied around her neck before the body was removed. Auto drivers who rushed to the hostel were forced out as the room was locked. 

Binny alleged: “Instead of preserving evidence, they destroyed everything.”

Gaps in evidence

The post-mortem examination, conducted at Thrissur Medical College, had also raised concerns of Jessamol’s family.

It did not record the time of death or fully examine wounds and signs of assault. The report noted only a superficial wound on her hand, and no injury to her neck, spine or spinal cord.

But lab tests showed a different picture. A chemical analysis at the Kakkanad government lab showed spermatozoa in her vaginal swab and smear, and semen in her underwear. Jeesamol’s blood group was O positive, but the clothes bore traces of B positive blood. Police later dismissed these findings, calling them lab errors, and failed to identify whose blood it was, Antony said. 

The ligature allegedly used for hanging was never preserved. A forensic examination in Thiruvananthapuram in 2007 found several anomalies: one strap of her bra was missing, her wristwatch was recovered later with broken glass and a torn strap, and there were traces of blood on the hostel door. 

Another student, Twincy, testified that someone had pushed her door open, and she later saw bloodstains and dripping handprints. But the room and door were cleaned before the police arrived, the family alleged.

No investigation was conducted on the basis of these findings, they added.

Devika Prasad, who heads the Police Reforms Programme at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), said the gaps in evidence preservation mirror a larger failure to follow nationally recommended forensic protocols.

“What proper DNA and evidence-collection processes should look like in rape or suspicious-death cases is clearly laid out in the Health Ministry’s 2014 guidelines, issued after the Delhi gangrape,” she explained. “Unfortunately, these were not in place during Jessamol’s time.”

She added that while criminal law has since been reformed in 2013 to strengthen investigative steps in rape cases, and again in 2023–24 to formally include the role of forensic investigators, implementation continues to lag.

“Besides changing law and procedure, there are fewer efforts to actually increase infrastructure to enable better investigations through forensics,” Prasad said. “And this is a major systemic gap.”

Systemic patterns

The concerns raised by Jeesamol’s family are similar to the patterns in criminal investigations across India, where early lapses at crime scenes, contradictory forensic reports and poor documentation have derailed cases before they reach trial.

One of the most cited examples is the 2008 Aarushi Talwar case, where investigators allowed journalists and onlookers to enter the home before securing the crime scene. Crucial forensic samples were contaminated or mishandled, bloodstain patterns were not properly recorded, and a pillow cover bearing the DNA of domestic worker Hemraj was misplaced. Years later, the Allahabad High Court overturned the parents’ conviction, noting that the prosecution’s case had collapsed under the weight of investigative inconsistencies and missing evidence.

In November 2025, the Supreme Court acquitted the main accused, Surendra Koli, in the last pending Nithari murder case. The court found that key forensic links were unreliable, confessions were tainted, and statutory procedures were not followed. The bench observed that after years of inquiry, the identity of the actual perpetrator could not be established to legal standards because the initial investigation had failed to preserve and substantiate evidence.

Devika said that the destruction or contamination of crucial evidence is not only a recurring feature in many such cases, but also an area where accountability is almost absent.

“If evidence is destroyed or tampered with, there should be legal consequences for those responsible,” she said. “But in reality, this rarely happens. The fact of evidence being tampered with or destroyed can only be established through judicial proceedings, and by then, years have passed.”

She added that accountability ultimately depends on “good lawyers and judges who are willing to examine these issues closely,” making justice even more difficult in cases where early lapses have already compromised the investigation.

Suspects

The family has accused Father Paul Payyappilly, then director of the San Jose Nursing College, Principal Sister Modesta SABS, Sisters Elizabeth, Warden Elisa, and Tutor Linta of being involved in a cover-up.

Binny has alleged that Payyappilly purportedly raped Jeesamol. 

They alleged that SI Vijayakumar, Crime Branch Deputy Superintendent of Police K. Suresh and Baby Vinod, and even hospital doctors colluded in destroying evidence.

Antony recalled: “Suresh first insisted Jeesamol’s blood group was B positive. But her admission form and her previous surgery records showed it was O positive, same as the rest of the family. By the time he admitted the mistake, the evidence was already destroyed.”

The family also alleged that photographs of the body, taken at Minerva Studio in Pavaratty, were seized by police before they could see them.

Legal journey

Binny told 101Reporters that her struggles began immediately after Jeesamol’s death. Over the years, she has seen the case change hands between local police, the crime branch and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). 

The long battle has left Binny physically weakened. She has been in and out of hospitals, but continues to search for another lawyer willing to reopen the case.

The local police had declared the case to be that of suicide, while the CBI submitted a closure report saying that the case could not be proved. 

The family challenged the closure report in the Kerala High Court. 

Advocate K Ramakumar represented them for 15 years, but Binny says evidence provided under the Right to Information Act – including reports showing semen in the vaginal swab and B-positive blood on clothing – was never effectively argued. “We gave every proof to our lawyer, but nothing happened,” she said.

In December 2017, the High Court dismissed the plea. A reinvestigation request was rejected in November 2022. In March 2023, the Supreme Court too dismissed the case, upholding the CBI’s conclusion of suicide.

The High Court’s judgment had noted there were no signs of struggle or forced entry, medical opinion suggested self-inflicted wounds, polygraph tests of suspects were negative for deception, and discrepancies in forensic reports could be due to contamination.

Advocate Sajeev T Prabhakaran, who represented the case later, said: “This could have been proved as murder at the very first stage. But once evidence is destroyed, no higher court can deliver justice.”

(Jessy Thuruthel is a freelance journalist and a member of 101Reporters.) 

This story has been produced by 101Reporters, an independent news agency with a network of 3,000+ freelance journalists across the country, in collaboration with Crime & Punishment, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.