THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Criminal investigation is a daunting task, especially if the perpetrators of the crime manage to cover their tracks efficiently. Police officers often rely on their intuition and at times, a stroke of luck to unknot the puzzle.
The theft of the deity idol from Anandawalleshwaram Temple, Kollam, in August 2015 was one such case that kept the officers racking their brains.
The centuries-old idol, made of panchaloha (a five-metal alloy of sacred significance) and weighing about 11 kilograms, was stored in a makeshift building as the sanctum sanctorum was undergoing renovation.
Initial investigation revealed that it had gone missing between 5.15am and 5.45am.
Owing to the antique and religious value of the idol, the police deployed about 100 officers in various teams to probe the case. The anti-theft squad too was tasked with solving the case. Suspecting that the idol could have landed in the hands of illegal antique dealers, the probe extended to Bengaluru and Chennai.
Meanwhile, officers were also making inquisitions on the digital front. They began collecting, by way of phone records, details of people who had likely passed by the area during the time of the theft.
This list numbered well into the thousands. The task of calling each person and verifying their statements was, from the get-go, a herculean task, made all the more tiresome by the guarded responses of the ones they called.
To make the task easier, officers ran this list against their database of people with criminal antecedents, including theft. This helped prune the numbers down to 500. But, even after analysing these records, there was no breakthrough.
During this time, a sketch prepared of the suspect was received. It bore some resemblance with a man who had obtained bail in another theft case recently — Sunil Kumar, a native of Thiruvananthapuram. Following this lead, officers collected his digital footprint.
However, this did not yield any result as the number was switched off. That was when one of the officers decided to press his luck — by checking the documents produced when Sunil was enlarged on bail in that case.
Sunil’s wife had, thankfully, provided her mobile number in one of the documents. Analysing her call records revealed a number that had regular interactions with the woman.
Suspecting that it could be Sunil’s, the officers traced the digital footprint further. They found that the phone, which carried the number, was switched off on the eve of the temple theft, but had come alive the next day, at Karunagapally.
Following this lead, the officers were able to arrest Sunil near Pothencode, within 10 days of the crime.
R Suresh, who was then the inspector of Kollam West station and a part of the investigation team, says, “Sunil was confident that he won’t be caught. But with our technical expertise, investigation skills, and lady luck, we managed to arrest the culprit and secure the idol.”
The achievement was widely lauded. Suresh is now Traffic DySP.
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