REPORT OF AN INDEPENDENT INQUIRY ... - Hundred Families

7. When the family moved to this country in 1979, they went to live at Mr and Mrs Ramkrishnan’s
house. Narayanan Sukumaran was Mrs Ramkrishnan’s uncle. Mr and Mrs Ramkrishnan have three
children who are of similar ages to Chandran and Sulekha Jaykumar. The five children got on very
well together. Sulekha Jaykumar told us that she and her brother were “so happy” when they lived
there. Sujita Trousdale said that her family “welcomed them” and the children “were really pleased
that we had two more children to play with. They were part of the family”. Biju Ramkrishnan said
Chandran was “just a normal kid”. Biju Ramkrishnan is a year older than Chandran and he said they
used to fight but our clear impression was that this was no more than siblings often do. Indeed, Biju
Ramkrishnan kept an eye on Chandran at school and said he was “a happy child”. Chandran was
described as “a very boisterous child” and “incredibly naughty” but Mrs Ramkrishnan had become
a mother figure to both him and his sister and she coped very well with him. Sujita Trousdale said
he “was secure, he was well loved” and Chandran said he was happy living with his aunt.
8. Chandran told us that when he was about 15 or 16, he punched a boy who was bullying another
child and had smashed up his (Chandran’s) artwork. This is the only incident of his having hit
somebody or of any other significant aggression for that matter whilst he was young that the Inquiry
Panel was told about.
9. It is, however, clear that Chandran’s relationship with Narayanan Sukumaran was complicated and
sometimes a very unhappy one. Sulekha Jaykumar explained that their father did love them but said
he did not display that love to them. He was often angry with them. Whilst she continued to respect
her father, she said her brother did not and became angry with him, sometimes saying “I’m going
to kill him” when he was young.
10. Sujita Trousdale described Chandran’s relationship with his father as “very remote”. She said that
Narayanan Sukumaran had “minimal contact” with his children and he seems to have kept himself
to himself, although she described him as believing “in corporal punishment to the extreme”. She
told the Inquiry that Narayanan Sukumaran was a violent man who lost his temper quite easily and
hit Chandran. Chandran said he was not good at academic work and his father often hit him and
told him to go to his room and study. Similarly, Biju Ramkrishnan described Narayanan Sukumaran
as being very strict and not showing much love towards his children. He told us that, as children,
they had hated him and that Narayanan Sukumaran used to beat the children (including Mr and Mrs
Ramkrishnan’s) but this did not happen in front of his parents.
11. The living arrangement at the Ramkrishnans’ home ended in about 1985 following a dispute
between Narayanan Sukumaran and Mr Ramkrishnan about the former’s treatment of Biju
Ramkrishnan, who told us that Narayanan Sukumaran had beaten him with a tennis racquet after
an argument. As a result of this, Mr Ramkrishnan asked Narayanan Sukumaran to move out of his
house. Mr and Mrs Ramkrishnan and their children would have liked their cousins to remain living
with them but Narayanan Sukumaran insisted that his children had to move out with him. Sujita
Trousdale said her father told him not to take the children with him but Narayanan Sukumaran
forced them to go and they moved to live in a number of different homes with various friends and
relatives. Whilst she thought Sulekha Jaykumar was prepared to go with her father and described
her as going “with the flow”, she said Chandran begged not to be taken and found the decision
“very traumatic”. This change of home led to a very unhappy time for both Chandran and his sister.
They were unsettled and missed the family life they had had previously. Sulekha Jaykumar said
Chandran was very unhappy and that he changed, by which she explained that she thought he
became ill. To use her words, she said “After that this disease begin (sic).”
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