THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Police probes into cases of unidentified dead bodies in a decayed state often hit a dead end, with little clues about the deceased person. However, there have been instances like the Chacko murder case of 1984, involving Kerala’s most wanted fugitive Sukumara Kurup, where identifying the charred body became crucial in cracking the mystery.
A decade ago, in a similar case, officers were initially left in the dark for over two weeks following the recovery of a body floating on the Periyar river. However, a breakthrough came when a senior reporter working with a Malayalam daily received crucial information from North Paravoor-based criminal lawyer V A Hakeem.
The info was passed on to the police, and that became a major turning point in solving the murder of 38-year-old lottery vendor named Baby, and the arrest of her live-in partner Babu aka ‘Japan’ Shaji.
It all began on November 14, 2014, when a sack was found floating on the Periyar, near the Kottapuram bridge on National Highway 66. A security guard in the vicinity alerted others, and it was brought to the riverbank. The sack was tied with a piece of cloth torn from a dhoti.
Upon opening it, people were shocked to find the body of a woman inside. The police were called to the spot, and a case of unnatural death was registered at the Kodungallur police station.
“The body was in a decomposed state and the woman could not be identified. Even shifting the body to the hospital was difficult. Only a few portions of her clothes were visible. Her hands and feet were tied up with a shawl, and the only jewellery on her was a pair of earrings,” recalls an officer, who was part of the investigation.
The police showed photographs of the body to several people, but no one could identify her. Officers also checked recent missing-person cases, but there was no report that matched the woman’s features.
“It had been almost 10 days, and we were stuck. We circulated information about the woman through newspapers and channels. Then, we decided to highlight her earrings,” says the police officer.
Meanwhile, lawyer Hakeem was following newspaper reports about the body found in the river. “I used to discuss the case with my office staff. One of them mentioned that her friend had been missing since November 13. But we never thought the deceased would turn out to be the same person,” he says.
“I showed the staffer a photograph of the earrings that was published in a newspaper. She immediately identified them as those worn by her friend, Baby. I discussed the matter with a journalist friend, who then alerted the police.”
Officers soon reached out to Hakeem, who had gathered information on the earrings. “Baby, who was from Kollam, worked as a maid at various houses in North Paravoor. During her spare time, she sold lottery tickets, and that’s how she befriended my staffer,” he says.
“Baby had told her that she had purchased the earrings from a jewellery shop through an 18-month gold scheme. She also mentioned to my staffer that she had been living with a man named Shaji, who helped her with the lottery business. Baby had also spoken of Shaji assaulting her and squandering her hard-earned money. We shared this information with the police.”
To confirm that the deceased was indeed Baby, the police matched her fingerprint with one on a land deed recovered from her brother. DNA samples from the brother matched with hers, and the jeweller identified the earrings. Officers, who had been tracking Shaji, arrested him on December 17, 2014, after his mobile phone tower locations were traced to Muvattupuzha, Kuravilangad, Ettumannor, and Kattappana.
“He confessed that Baby had slapped him in public over financial matters related to lottery sales. The same night, they had a scuffle . In a fit of rage Shaji struck her with a stick, resulting in a fatal head injury. He then wrapped her body in a sack and dumped it in the river,” the officer says.
In February 2017, an additional sessions court in Irinjalakuda sentenced Shaji to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of D 5 lakh. He was sent to the Central Prison. However, in July 2021, a division bench, comprising Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice Ziyad Rahman A A, acquitted him following his appeal.