KASARAGOD: A migrant worker, believed to be from Karnataka, was found murdered in front of a shop on the coastal highway at Kottikulam on Thursday, said Bekal police.
The police are yet to identify the person but Tyson -- the Belgian Malinois inducted into the canine force last October -- seems to have cracked the case in less than 10 minutes.
Based on the leads given by Tyson, the police have detained a watchman of a large compound with four houses -- three of which are under construction. "But the detained person, who is also from Karnataka, is not cooperating with us," said a top officer of Bekal police division.
However, sources said the police are in possession of footage from the surveillance cameras of the houses in which they saw a person dragging a body wrapped in a sack from the back of the building to the gate of the compound.
The four owners of the four houses and their families are in the US, said an officer in Bekal station. "We believe the person who died could be a watchman of the houses," he said.
He said as of now the police have registered a case of unnatural death and would wait for the postmortem report.
In the morning, when the body was found, the police asked around and no one could identify the person. They called in the dog squad.
The dog handlers came with Tyson, a trained tracker. "We found a plank with three blood-stained nails on it near the body. There were nail marks on the chest of the deceased man," he said. The handler made Tyson smell the nails and the plank.
The Belgian Malinois (pronounced mal-in-wa) -- with a superior sense of smell, dashed 15m ahead towards Palakkunnu on the coastal highway and stopped in front of the compound with the four houses and pawed the gate open.
Once inside, Tyson ran around 100m inside to reach the back of a building, where officers found traces of struggle and a stone hearth. "Tyson bit a piece of jeans fabric hanging on the clothesline and dropped it near the fireplace," the officer said.
After circling the area he dashed outside and sat near the body. "He finished his work in less than 10 minutes," he said.
The Belgian Malinois gave enough leads for the police to work on. The forensics experts have also collected evidence from the crime scene. "We will have something concrete to share tomorrow," said the officer in Bekal police station.