Kerala woman, 23, in suicide note alleges abuse and pressure to convert from partner

A suicide note left by 23-year-old Teacher’s Training Course student Sona Eldhose has alleged that Ramees from Paravoor in Kerala’s Ernakulam district and his family pressured her to convert to another religion before marriage, and police say the case has been upgraded from unnatural death to abetment of suicide.

The note, recovered on Sunday, accuses Ramees of “locking her in a room,” physically assaulting her, and forcing her to change her faith, while also claiming that his relatives insisted marriage would only be possible after conversion and that she must live in his family home.

Kothamangalam police say WhatsApp chats show Ramees replying “go ahead” when Sona said she might take her own life, and investigators claim to have evidence of him assaulting her. Her mother alleged that Sona was “willing to register marriage but not for conversion” and said her daughter had “been in love with Ramees for a while” but had resisted their attempts to take her to Ponnani for conversion. “She was locked up and beaten last week after she resisted,” she said.

According to the family, the relationship began during college but turned abusive when Ramees’s relatives warned him that without her conversion, he would be ostracised from the mosque. Sona initially agreed but delayed the process due to her father’s recent death, and her brother alleged that despite Ramees’s earlier arrest in an immoral trafficking case, she forgave him.

Recently, police say, Ramees took Sona to his home under the pretext of visiting a friend, confined her to a room, and assaulted her, while also preparing a vehicle to take her to Ponnani for conversion. When she refused, she wrote that he told her to die, and she was found hanging in her home on Saturday.

Police have confirmed that Ramees works as a temporary staff member at Kochi Airport, and they say his family members are likely to be named as co-accused in the case.