KOCHI: Kochi city’s infamous burglar Johnson, alias Mariar Pootham, has again landed in the police net after a failed theft attempt at a house on Kattakara Lane at Kaloor in the wee hours of Monday. Mariar is known as Ernakulam North police’s own burglar as he breaks only into houses located within the police station limit, mostly Lisie Hospital premises, SRM Road and Azad Road areas of Kaloor in Kochi.
Around 1am on Monday, Mariar got inside the house of a Tamil Nadu native at Kattakara Lane after breaking the lock of the back door. While carrying out the theft, the resident became aware of his presence and resisted him. During the fight, Mariar injured the resident but that alarmed neighbours. With the help of neighbours, the police team nabbed Mariar. He was released from jail only two weeks ago. Mariar was remanded to judicial custody.
“The house owner is injured and admitted to the hospital with a minor injury. Usually, Mariar doesn’t physically harm anyone while carrying out the theft. It has become a routine affair for us at the North police station as he indulges in thefts only at places near Kaloor after being released from jail every time.
We have lost count of the number of theft cases registered against him at the station,” a police officer said. There are several stories on why 64-year-old Mariar, a native of Marthandam on the way to Kanyakumari from Thiruvananthapuram, only breaks into houses under Ernakulam North station limit. One notorious story in circulation among police officials is that Mariar still nurses a grudge against a former sub-inspector who had served at the station.
“He does not speak out about the reason for committing the crime in this area. He started thefts in the late 2000s after coming to Kochi in the 1990s,” an officer said. As part of the probe into a bike theft case, we collected CCTV footage from various places in Kaloor last week. In one of the CCTV recordings, Mariar was seen roaming around in Kaloor area. Though he was not involved in the bike theft, we knew that he had been released from jail and could strike again anytime. For the past one week, night patrolling had been intensified to prevent another theft,” a police official said.