Constable\'s wife deposes before CBI court

KOCHI: Santhamma, widow of Ramachandran Nair, Central Reserve Police Force constable, on Thursday, told the CBI court trying the �Verghese encounter death case that her husband was a much-changed man after he was forced to shoot the Naxalite leader to death. Ms. Shanthamma said that after the shooting, Nair had taken to drinking and smoking. He was disturbed, gloomy, irritable and often sat in silence.

Her husband had told her a few days after the February 18, 1970 shooting that he had to kill the Naxalite leader on the orders of his superiors. He had been told that he would lose his life if he disobeyed. �I did it for you and our baby, Ms. Shanthamma recalled Mr. Nair telling her. Ms. Shanthamma was 22 and had a three-year-old child at the time. Mr. Nair had not been able to sleep at night for a long time after the shooting. Until his death in 2006, he had kept a photograph of Vergheses in his diary.