‘Ripper’ Jayanandan, the notorious death row convict who escaped from the Central Prison, Thiruvananthapuram, was finally nabbed by the police in Nellayi, a few kilometres away from his native village in Thrissur on Monday. The police detained Jayanandan in the afternoon, while he was waiting to get his bicycle repaired at Nellayi junction. Police said that Jayanandan did not try to escape when the police confronted him.
Confirming his arrest, Chalakudy DySP T K Thomas said Jayanandan was taken to Puthukad station for interrogation. “We had been travelling along the NH in the afternoon, as part of streamlining the traffic ahead of a BJP march to the Palliyekkara Toll Plaza. When the vehicle reached Nellayi junction, Shijith, my colleague, who had earlier accompanied Jayanandan to the court, told me that he saw a person resembling him”, K K Ravi, Puthukkad Additional SI, who was instrumental in detaining the convict, told Express.
“Following this, we stopped our vehicle a few metres away from the junction and crossed the highway and confronted him. When we asked him whether he was Jayanaandan, he replied in the negative first. But when Shjith confronted him further, he accepted that he was the infamous convict”.
Jayanandan, who is an accused in eight murder cases, including a double homicide, and 14 burglaries, escaped from the high security prison along with his cell mate Ooppa Prakash by scaling a 7 metre wall, after sawing through the prison door with a hacksaw on 9 June.
After the jailbreak, he stayed at a shack in Thiruvananthapuram during the first three days. Later, he went to Poyya, a small village situated on the border area of Thrissur and Ernakulam, where his family resides. Though his cell mate was arrested on July 19 in Kollam, Jayanandan had been successfully evading arrest by shifting his residence across Chalakudy, Mala, Ollur and Puthukkad, said N Muraleedharan, CI, Puthukkad. Jayanandan would be handed over to the special investigation team on Monday night and taken to Thiruvanathapuram, he added.
Jayanandan, who had earlier escaped from the Central Jail in Kannur on June 14, 2010, was nabbed from Udhagamandalam in Tamil Nadu on June 15, 2010.
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