Indian immigrant kills wife in New Jersey

New York, Nov 24 (PTI) A 24-year old Indian immigrant
from Kerala trying to escape an abusive marriage, was killed
by her husband, who also shot two other persons injuring them
critically at a church in New Jersey.

The 27-year old assailant, identified as Joseph "Sanish"
Pallipurath, who drove all across the US from California to
New Jersey to confront his 24-year old wife Reshma James,
escaped after fatally shooting her.

Police said he was still potentially dangerous as he
possessed the sliver handgun with which he shot the victim.

While Reshma died four hours later, the two others,
identified as Dennis John Malloosseril, 23, and Silvy
Perincheril, 47, were reportedly in "very critical condition".
The hospital though declined to give any information.

Perincheril is Reshma's cousin and a mother of three.

The incident occurred towards the end of the three-hour
Sunday service at the St Thomas Syrian Orthodox Kanaya Church
in Clifton, when Pallipurath confronted his wife in the Church
and shot her, along with another woman and a man.

Apparently apprehending trouble, Reshma had obtained a
Court order restraining her husband from coming near her.

Police said she had suffered abuse right from the initial
days of her marriage in Kerala, and after the couple moved to
California, she continued to complain of abuse.

Recently, Reshma had left her husband to live with a
relative in New Jersey.

About 200 people were inside the church at the time of
the incident and police received several emergencies calls.
Several law enforcement agencies were involved in the search
for the suspect who escaped in a jeep.

Clifton Mayor Jim Anzaldi said he heard about the
shooting while attending Sunday service in a different church.

"It's a shock, that somebody would have gone into a
church like that," he told the media. "It's a terrible thing."

A local newspaper Record quoted friends of Malloosseril,
one of the victim, as saying he was near death and family
members were making arrangements to donate his organs.

James had moved from India, where she had an arranged
marriage, to California in January with her husband. But
church members said the relationship soon turned violent.

"He was beating her," Record quoted Rev Thomas Abraham
Lahayil, the church's vicar, as saying. "She had a restraining
order against him."

She fled Sacramento in California where the couple had
their home and moved in with her cousin Perincheril, who is
the church's Sunday school teacher.

James has no immediate family in the US and her parents
are en route from India, Church members were quoted as saying.

Malloosseril's aunt, Suja Alummoottil, told Record that
she was in the vestibule with Perincheril and James when
Pallipurath entered the building.

"He had a beard and was wearing a sweatshirt with the
hood up," Alummoottil said.

"I knew something was wrong because who comes to church
like that? He was angry and said 'I came to get my wife. I've
been walking around without my wife for months.'" She then
said the man said to his wife, "Are you coming with me?"

James asked Pallipurath not to make a commotion in the
church, Alummoottil said, adding she never saw a gun.

Alummoottil said she went into the church's nave to find
Perincheril's husband, when she heard the shots.

Malloosseril, who had been standing at the back of the
church, went into the vestibule to intervene, police said, but
did not elaborate. PTI DS
RKM
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