send his daughter to a shelter home.

He had claimed in his petition that his daughter was being treated for mental health issues by Dr Vrinda of Ananthapuri Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram and she needed to be shifted out of the "stranger’s house" she was currently living in.

Neenu says she has become used to bad news, but this latest betrayal from her father has still come as a shock.

Last Monday, the dead body of 23-year-old Kevin, the man she had dreamt a future with, had been found floating in a canal at Chaliyekkara in Kollam district.

Her brother Shanu Chacko had kidnapped Kevin from his maternal grandparent’s house in the wee hours of May 27. Both Shanu and Chacko have been arrested on charges of conspiracy and murder.

“How can my fathersays.

Neenu says a boy 'proposed' to her first when she was in 9th standard. Amused and worried at the same time, she told her parents about him. Later she came to know that he had been thrashed badly.

“This happened a few times. My family would thrash the boys and I still had to go back to school. Then I stopped telling them if anyone tried to become friendly or 'propose' to me. But they were suspicious and would keep hitting me,” she recalls.

A young Neenu grew up without an ally in her own house. Her brother Shanu too had become more of a stranger to Neenu by then. He had moved out after 10th standard to study and then work at various places. Her brother, Neenu says, did