Some cases refuse to die. They sleep in dusty files, waiting for someone to flip them open. And sometimes, someone does.
Fourteen years after a body was pulled out of a temple pond in Nemom, the Crime Branch went back to that night in 1998 and began asking questions the local police had dared not to pursue.
The man who had died, S Suresh Kumar, a 28-year-old Indian Air Force non-commissioned officer, was first thought to have drowned. But his family believed otherwise and requested a crime branch probe.
It was April 2012 when the then Additional Director General of Police (Crimes), Vinson M Paul, reopened the file. His team had undertaken the challenge of digging into cases that had been long forgotten by routine policing.
“It became something of a mission to revive cold files. When the family requested a fresh probe, we took a hard look at the evidence or the lack of it,” says Vinson.
The death had always been strange, he feels. Suresh’s body was found floating in a pond, but the post-mortem was full of “red flags”. The injuries didn’t add up to a simple fall. Statements by family and friends contradicted each other. “Something was off,” Vinson was sure.
So the team started from the beginning, piece by piece. First, as part of the investigation, led by the then DySp P Reghu, the team summoned all the old witnesses. Then came the breakthrough.
“Five different people remembered seeing Suresh with a group of local youths, including his neighbour Sarath, at Kallumoodu junction late that night. Some even said they had arrived together in an auto-rickshaw, half-drunk, laughing loudly. Then, a scuffle began. The last anyone saw of Suresh, the gang was forcing him towards the pond,” recalls Reghu.
This time, post-mortem and forensic reports were examined with a sharper eye. Smothering, homicidal drowning. Nine facial injuries. Contusions. Beating marks. “Not an accident. Not even close”.
Prasanna, the woman living next door to Sarath, came forward again. She had heard shouting that night. Prasanna said she heard Sarath‘s mother sobbing while asking. “Why did you do it?”
However, back in 1998, the local police did not dig much into it, say the team. They shelved it quickly. Crucial evidence, like Sarath’s blood-stained clothes, had vanished from the station. Objects that were supposed to be preserved under court order had disappeared without a trace.
So the investigation tracked down those who had served the drinks that night. They even re-questioned Sarath’s mother.
And slowly, a motive came out.
A rumour. An invented story about Suresh having an affair with someone in Sarath’s family. The probe team concluded that the murder was an attempt to salvage a tarnished ego.
“That night, Sarath and his friends Asokan, Santhosh, and Anil called Suresh out under the pretext of a late-night drinking session. It ended with beatings, and finally, drowning,” adds Reghu.
Twenty-seven years after Suresh’s body was pulled from that pond, and more than a decade since the case was revived, closure remains just out of reach. Of the four accused, three are dead.