KOCHI: Ammini Thankachan and Bindu Viju initially thought that someone had spilt red paint, used for colouring tiles, when they saw a red coloured liquid on the floor at the shed as they arrived for work around 10am on Monday. But Ammini sensed that the liquid did not smell paint, and they soon realised that it was blood.
“When I realised it was blood, my first thought was that both Dipen and Raja might have killed a live chicken to prepare some dish on Sunday. I even told Bindu that Raja might have forgotten to wash the place after cleaning the chicken.
The door of the room where Dipen and Raja used to sleep was also locked from outside. As we checked the spot, we saw a trail of blood leading to a heap of sand lying near the shed. When we checked the sand, we noticed that something was buried in the sand and there was blood. We immediately alerted the unit owner. It was shocking to see the body of Raja Das in it,” said Ammini, who has been working at the unit for the past 22 years.
She said Raja came as a worker a month ago and Dipen joined a few days later.“I and Bindu live nearby. Raja was soft spoken and behaved very politely. Even Dipen behaved decently. Except for smoking beedi, we haven’t noticed any other bad habit with both of them,” she said.
They did not notice any issue between Dipen and Raja, she said.“They seemed to be very friendly with each other. When we didn’t see Raja in the morning, we thought he might have gone to his native place” said Ammini, tears rolling down her cheeks.