THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city police on Monday nabbed the kingpin of the murder of a 22-year-old man, whose body was found charred in Kanyakumari five months ago. The Valiyathura police arrested Anu Aju, 27, of Valiyathura. Aakash aka Kochumon of Kadinamkulam on the city outskirts, who was accused in a robbery case, was strangulated to death, allegedly by his friends following a dispute over the distribution of booty near Valiyathura on the night of March 30.
Earlier, the police had arrested two women involved in the crime: Anu Aju’s wife Reshma, 27, of Swagath Nagar, Manakkad; and his mother Alphonsa of Valiyathura. The incident came to the attention of the police when a burnt corpse was found by locals within the jurisdiction of Anjugramam police station in Tamil Nadu on April 1. The Tamil Nadu police had registered a case of unnatural death and started an investigation.
Anu Aju and Aaksh, who had been engaged in bike robbery, had a dispute over sharing the money accrued from the illegal business. Following this, Aaksh had threatened Aju with dire consequences if he refused to give his share of money and even threatened that he would tip the police off. Later, Reshma called Aakash from her mobile phone and asked him to come to the bike workshop of Aju in Valiyathura. Later, he was given alcohol laced with a drug and when he dozed off, Aju and his friend Jithu strangulated Aakash to death using Reshma’s shawl.
After the crime, Aju and Reshma together travelled up to Kollam with the mobile phone of Aakash. In order to mislead the police and others, they put a status message on the Facebook account of Aakash indicating that he (Akash) was travelling to Pathanamthitta from Kollam.
Later at night, they came back to the crime scene and took a Scorpio on rent to transport the body to Tamil Nadu. During this time, Alphonsa was guarding the dead body at the bike workshop. The duo then took the body to Tamil Nadu and set it ablaze using petrol at an isolated place near Suchindram.
The accused has been remanded in the judicial custody for 14 days.