KOCHI: Officers on night duty at the Tirur police station in Malappuram on March 4, 2013, never thought they would have to probe a crime so heinous. In the wee hours of March 5, 2013, a three-year-old nomad girl, belonging to a Tamil migrant family, went missing while sleeping with her mother
on a shop’s veranda.
Retired DySP Shandi Cyriac, who at that time served as Tirur CI, recounts the horrific memories of searching for the little kid.
“It was 4 am when the child’s mother realised her child was missing. She searched nearby areas and when failed to find the girl, reached the police station with a few local residents and lodged a missing complaint. We started our search at 5 am. A lot of the natives also helped us,” she says.
After an intensive search, the girl was traced to an isolated building, far from where she went to sleep the previous night. The people who gathered were shocked to see the state of the girl.
“She was unconscious, covered in blood and her body temperature was soaring,” recalls the officer. The toddler, who had severe injuries all over her body, was rushed to a private hospital in Tirur. The doctors who examined the girl revealed that she was brutally raped and that her genitals were severely injured. She was shifted to the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital the next day and underwent two major surgeries.
Shandi says that the initial probe focused mainly on local criminal gangs. Around 20 habitual offenders were interrogated.
“Muhammed Jasim, a native of Tirur, was actively involved in the search for the girl. When the cops started searching for local criminals, he went into hiding. This was our prime reason to suspect him,” says Shandi.
Jasim was a drug addict who posed a regular nuisance to women and children in the area. He was involved in many illegal activities like drug peddling and sexual offences and usually sleeps on the street.
“In our inquiry, we came to know that Jasim was in Tirur on the day of the incident,” says Shandi.
A special investigation team, headed by Tirur DySP K Seydali, was formed to probe the crime. CI Rafi and Shandi and a team of eight-nine officers from the Crime Detection Squad (CDS) were members of the team.
“With the help of the CDS, we found Jasim’s cell phone tower location and nabbed him from Kozhikode town on March 8. The mismatch in his statements, eye-witness accounts and the DNA report proved that he was the culprit,” says the officer.
The Manjeri sessions court produced the final verdict within 10 months of the incident. The then district and sessions judge P K Haneefa sentenced Jasim to 30 years in jail for four different crimes associated with the brutal rape.“After weeks of treatment, the girl came back to life,” Shandi informs.