The police officials in Otteri, Chennai have let a woman, who killed her husband, walk free under the grounds that she had acted to rescue her daughter. The woman has killed her husband for sexually harassing their 20-year-old daughter at their home. She beat him with a hammer and killed him, after which she surrendered before the Otteri police in the wee hours of Friday. 

According to the police, the woman is a native of Kerala and she had been living with her husband and her in-laws as a joint family for the past two decades. The woman's father-in-law, who is a tailor, by profession owns a few houses in Otteri and as her husband was not employed, the couple's children - a 20-year-old daughter who was studying in a college and son, who was studying in Class VI, are being raised by her husband's parents. 

The college-goer would often stay with her grandparents. However, as her grandparents had gone to a relative's house on Thursday, she had slept with her parents on Thursday night. While the woman, her husband, and her son were sleeping on the cot, the girl was sleeping on the floor. In the wee hours of Friday, the woman woke up after she heard her daughter crying. She was shocked to see that her husband was trying to sexually harass their own daughter. 

The woman and her son woke up and tried to push her husband away from his daughter. However, he had tried to beat them after which the woman had grabbed a hammer and hit her husband repeatedly on the head and killed him. Following the incident, she had surrendered before the Otteri police station with the hammer and confessed that she had killed her husband to save and rescue her daughter. 

Otteri Police Inspector Johny Chellappa had filed a case against the woman on murder charges. However, she was then let to walk free as she had acted in a defence of saving her daughter. The Otteri Police had registered a case under section 302 (murder) of the IPC and detained the woman for questioning. The Times of India had quoted Pulianthope Deputy Commissioner of Police, Eswaran saying, "The investigation officers had preferred not to arrest the woman as she killed her husband to rescue her daughter."

"We will submit a detailed final report before the court after collecting the evidence and witness statements", he added. As per his statement, the officials had begun gathering the evidence and witnesses to prove that the woman had killed her husband to save her daughter.