KOTTAYAM: Unravelling the mystery behind the abandoned body parts of a man recovered from Manganam near here, the police team probing the case identified the victim and arrested a couple in connection with the incident.
The victim was identified as Santhosh Kumar, alias Pollal Santhosh, 40, hailing from Punnamparambil house, Malakunnam, near Payyappadi.
The arrested are A R Vinod Kumar, alias Kammal Vinod, 58, a notorious goonda, hailing from Kottayam and residing at a rented house in Meenadom, and his wife Kunjumol, 38.
It was on Sunday morning Santhosh’s headless body, which was cut into two pieces, was recovered from the wayside bushes near Mandiram Culvert junction along Kanjikkuzhy - Puthuppalli road.
From the information received from the arrested couple, the police on Monday recovered the head from a small stream near Makroni junction, a few kilometres away from the place where the torso was found.
The head was found tied to a stone and deposited in water in a plastic cover.
According to the police, Vinod and Santhosh, with criminal background, were friends. When Vinod was arrested on charges of killing his father in February 2017, Santhosh developed an illicit relationship with Vinod’s wife Kunjumol and they were living together before Vinod came out on bail in May.
Later, Vinod came to know of the relationship and entered into a brawl with Santhosh recently.
Following this, Vinod forced Kunjumol to invite Santhosh to his house on August 23. When she showed reluctance, he brutally tortured his wife leading to a fracture on her right arm.
Finally, Kunjumol contacted Santhosh on his mobile phone asking him to come to the house. While entering the house, Vinod hit Santhosh with an iron rod. After ensuring his death, Vinod cut the body into three pieces using a knife used in slaughterhouses.
“Soon the couple took the body pieces in three packets, went out in Vinod’s autorickshaw, deposited two sacks at Mandiram junction and abandoned the head at Makroni junction,” the police said.
It was the saffron dhothi and and a burn mark on the victim’s body that gave vital clues to the investigation team. According to Kottayam DySP Zacharia Mathew, they began the investigation centred on the saffron dhothi and shirt.
“We collected details of all man-missing cases in the district and arrived at Santhosh’s house. Later, we got other pieces of evidence with the help of the Cyber team and scientific experts,” he said.