Manorama’s murder by WB teen
The murder of 68-year-old Manorama at Kesavadasapuram in August grabbed headlines for both the brutal violence and the identity of the assailant. The murderer was Adham Ali, a 19-year-old West Bengal native, who worked as a construction labourer. He stayed with his friends near Manorama’s house. The accused after finding her alone at the house barged in and misbehaved with her. When she resisted the attempt, he slit her throat and dumped her body into a well after tying red bricks to her legs. The accused was arrested at Chennai railway station while trying to flee to his home state. The police had found CCTV visuals of him entering Thiruvananthapuram railway station, and that he missed a direct train to West Bengal. They anticipated that he could’ve immediately boarded a Chennai train with the intention to catch a train home from there. Police immediately passed a message to their TN counterparts and Adham was arrested as soon as he reached Chennai.
Greeshma’s juice challenge
Though several grotesque crimes took place in the city in 2022, the murder of 23-year-old Sharon Raj allegedly by his lover Greeshma came as a shocker. The 22-year-old Ramavarmanchira native wanted to remove Sharon from her life and marry a soldier. And she carried out her plan using a poison-laced herbal concoction, which she gave to him when he visited her on October 14. The youngster died 11 days later due to multiple organ failure. The local police were initially clueless about the murder, but the crime branch finally cracked the case. Greeshma reportedly confessed that she tried to murder Sharon on several occasions before by holding a ‘juice challenge’, where she egged him on to sip bottled juice spiked with poison. Her uncle and mother were also arrested for destroying evidence.
Serial psycho killer
The murder of 38-year-old Vineethamol from Nedumangad, who used to work in a plant nursery near Ambalamukku, on February 6 was the handiwork of a psycho killer from Tamil Nadu. The murder caught the police by surprise as it took place when lockdown-like curbs were in place. There were not many people moving around the place where the murder took place in the broad daylight. That was both a challenge and an advantage for the cops. They finally managed to identify the murderer and tracked him down from his house in Tamil Nadu. The culprit, Rajendran, was found to be a serial killer, who had claimed four lives in the past. He had arrived in Thiruvananthapuram for a job and it was while working in a hotel he committed the crime. The police found that the woman was killed when she resisted a robbery attempt.
Museum sexual assault
The brazen sexual assault on a lady doctor who came for an early morning walk in the Napier Museum on October 26 burst the bubble that Thiruvananthapuram city was safe for women. As she was approaching the Museum entrance near the corporation office side, an unidentified man assaulted her and then fled the scene. The police managed to create a sketch of the suspect, who a week later was identified as Santosh Kumar, driver of Water Resources Minister Roshy Augustine’s private secretary. The police first apprehended him in connection with trespassing into the house of a woman near Kuravankonam. Later, he was identified as the culprit behind the sexual assault on the doctor. The police mentioned him as a pervert, and the agency that had hired him on contract terminated his employment.
Gangs of Tamil Nadu
On Independence Day, the Valiyathura police found parts of two lower limbs of a man discarded at the Muttathara sewage plant. And little did they know that they were going to unravel a barbaric crime precipitated by the rivalry between two Tamil Nadu-based gangs. When the police began collecting information on missing people, the search culminated a small house near Chinnamuttom in Kanyakumari. The resident Peter Kanishkar had been missing for days. Retrieving his mobile phone locations and listening to his mother, the cops found that Peter was called to Thiruvananthapuram by his nemesis, who later bumped him off there. The body was sliced into pieces and discarded in various places. Manu Ramesh and Shahan Sha of Vallakkadavu were arrested. It was Manu’s rivalry with Peter that led to the crime.
Case diary
This weekly column brings you exciting, intriguing police stories, straight from the crime files
Compiled by shan A S