For 12 days, the search for Vinod, a 53-year-old rubber tapper, and Sindhu, a 35-year-old helper at the rubber plantation, had yielded nothing. The two, who had been working together, were missing from Wadakkanchery since March 27, 2024. Search attempts in the surrounding areas had remained unfruitful.
One stretch of forest, however, remained unexplored partly because a wild elephant had been spotted there. That was when the Wadakkanchery police sought the help of the Kochi City Police’s dog squad.
Dog handler P Prabath, along with co-handler K M Manesh, arrived with Maya, a trained tracker dog. One more team accompanied Murphy, another tracker dog from Palakkad. The search teams decided to approach the forest through two different routes.
“We were told that there were two possible routes. One was from the area where they lived towards the forest, and the other was a direct route into the forest from the main road. So we split into two teams,” Prabath recalls.
Prabath and Maya’s team took the direct route into the forest. The terrain soon became difficult, with thick vegetation and leaves reaching up to their knees.
Then Maya suddenly changed direction.
“She started pulling towards the right. I understood that she had picked up a scent and told the others that Maya was leading us in that direction,” Prabath said.
Maya continued deeper into the forest, covering nearly two kilometres before stopping on top of a rock. She stood still.
There was no obvious smell for the police officers to notice, nor could they immediately see anything unusual. But Maya was right.
“From where she was standing, we saw a body hanging from a tree. What we first noticed was a saffron-coloured cloth tied around the neck,” Prabath said.
It was Vinod. The body had darkened, making it difficult to identify against the surroundings.
Prabath said the colour of the cloth tied around the neck helped draw their attention to it. Had Maya not stopped there, the team might have passed the spot without noticing the body.
However, the search was not over. As the officers examined the area, they discovered another body beneath the rocks.
“The woman’s body was lying below the rocks, completely covered by leaves. Even though we were walking through the area, we could not see her. Maya went on top of the rock and looked down, but the body was still difficult to spot,” Prabath said.
The dense forest also created another problem: there was no network to immediately alert the investigating officers. “We stood there and shouted for the other police officers. But there was no response. After some time, somehow, we got network and managed to contact the SI. We informed them of the situation and asked them to come to the spot,” he says.
Police later found that Sindhu’s body had suffered extensive animal bites, with the lower portion of the body missing. According to officials, the search team suspected that the presence of poison in Sindhu’s body could have deterred animals from feeding on the upper portion.
The discovery brought an end to a 12-day search for the two missing persons. In a forest where two bodies lay hidden beneath darkness and thick foliage, it was the trained nose of a police dog that finally gave investigators their first clear lead.