How AI helped nab Army deserters wanted for brutal murders of 2006

Here’s a quick flashback. The crime occurred in 2006, at Areyam near Anchal in Kollam district.
Image used for representation purposes only.
Image used for representation purposes only.(Photo | Express Illustrations)
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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It was a random check using an AI tool by the police technical intelligence wing that led to the recent arrest of two Army men, who had been on the run for nearly two decades after murdering a woman and her newborn twins.

Here’s a quick flashback. The crime occurred in 2006, at Areyam near Anchal in Kollam district. Although the investigation was handed over to the CBI in 2010, the Kerala Police unofficially continued its pursuit of the suspects — Divil Kumar B of Anchal and Rajesh P of Sreekandapuram — who were serving in the 45 Air Defence Regiment of the Army, posted in Pathankot at the time.

On January 24, 2006, Renjini gave birth to twin daughters. The 24-year-old and her newborns were found murdered on February 10. “It was a brutal murder. Their throats were slit, and there were severe stab injuries on their bodies,” recalls an officer, who had worked at the Anchal police station in 2006.

“Renjini’s mother, Santhamma, was not at home at the time as she had gone to the panchayat office to obtain birth certificates for her granddaughters. Santhamma mentioned that a man named Anil Kumar had visited the house just before she left. That is when we started tracking Anil.”

Investigators soon discovered that Renjini had been in a relationship with Divil, a fellow native of Anchal, who was stationed in Pathankot. Renjini and her mother had approached the Kerala State Women’s Commission after Divil refused to acknowledge the children. The commission decided to conduct a DNA test to establish the children’s parentage.

“However, we confirmed that Divil was in Pathankot at the time of the murders,” the officer notes. Our focus shifted to Anil, who had become acquainted with Renjini and her mother at a hospital in Thiruvananthapuram and regularly visited their home.”

A breakthrough came when police recovered a motorcycle registration certificate at the crime scene. The vehicle’s owner had sold it to a used-motorcycle shop in Thiruvananthapuram.

“We showed a photograph of Divil to the shop employee, who identified him. However, the identity of the second person remained a mystery. On one occasion, a shop employee mentioned that the second individual had taken him to an ATM to withdraw cash. That was a crucial lead,” says the officer.

Police scrutinised ATM transactions and found a withdrawal linked to a Pathankot bank account belonging to Rajesh, an Army colleague of Divil. Rajesh was on leave at the time of the murders. “On our request, the Army faxed us a photograph of Rajesh. Santhamma and the shop employees confirmed that Anil was, in fact, Rajesh from Sreekandapuram in Kannur,” the officer recalls.

With Rajesh’s involvement established, the police pieced together the plot. Disturbed by the Women’s Commission’s intervention, Divil sought Rajesh’s help. Rajesh befriended Renjini and her mother, and committed the murders while on leave in Kerala.

Meanwhile, Divil went into hiding on realising that he was a suspect. The police tracked their ATM withdrawals and discovered the duo had travelled to Delhi, Nashik, and Nagpur.

State Special Branch SP Shanavas A, who initially investigated the case as circle inspector in Anchal, says, “We worked tirelessly to nab the accused, travelling to various states. However, they always managed to evade us. They were eventually arrested after a recent tip-off from police to the CBI.”

In 2010, the High Court had directed the CBI to take over the probe. The Army, by then, declared both men deserters.

Enter AI

Of late, the Kerala Police intel wing has been on an unofficial mission to track those accused on the run in grave, long-pending cases. Though the Anchal murder case was under CBI investigation, police sleuths used an AI tool to recreate images of the fugitives as they might appear now. They then scanned social media platforms using these images.

“We identified a photograph of one accused on Facebook. Our probe revealed that he was living in Puducherry under the name Vishnu,” says an officer who was part of the investigation. “Rajesh, using the alias Praveen, was also in Puducherry. Both were running an interior design business, and had settled there with their families.”

This info was passed to the CBI’s Chennai unit, which confirmed their identities. On January 3, the CBI arrested the duo and produced them before the Ernakulam Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court, where they were remanded in judicial custody.

“We preserved the children’s DNA, knowing it could be crucial for future investigations. The CBI can now use these samples to confirm the parentage of the murdered babies,” says the officer.

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