Major Sridevi had gone to Thiruvananthapuram after she heard of her mother’s death, leaving behind husband N Muralidharan Nair and sons Vishnu, 5, and Varun, 3, at their flat in Kirbi Place.

On May 22, when Sridevi rushed back to Delhi, she found to her horror that Nair had carried out his threat — he had murdered Vishnu, grievously burnt and stabbed Varun and also partly burnt the house during his attempts at setting himself on fire with the gas cylinder. Eight years after the Army officer’s loss, a Division Bench of the High Court, led by Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, termed Nair’s crime as “bizarre” - caused by a mind fixated with the idea of killing his children and committing suicide.

A Sessions Court had in 2007 had condemned Nair to life imprisonment, which he was contesting before the higher Bench, stating there was no clinching evidence against this conviction. In its verdict later, the Division Bench upheld the earlier judgment, and reconfirmed Nair’s life term.

Nair described himself and his children as “dying” in his personal diary, written in English on a page dated January 8, 1998. Interestingly, that entry almost three years before the fatal night was considered during trial as a “suicide note” and a confession of his “anguish”.

“Nair was mentally disturbed because of his differences with his wife. Being unemployed made him a frustrated man. He was obsessed for sometime with the idea of killing himself and his children,” the Bench, in a recent judgment, attempted to surmise why Nair took the drastic step.

Eyewitness Baby Joseph testified in court that he had heard a blast from Nair’s flat and seen a weeping Varun standing outside, smeared with blood. Vishnu was found dead on the bed. When confronted with his act, Nair had dismissed it as “family matter”.

Sridevi also testified that Nair had earlier prevented her from visiting her sister in Bangalore.