ALAPPUZHA: The Dulquer Salmaan starrer Kurup, based on one of Kerala’s most wanted fugitives Sukumara Kurup, is all set to take over silver screens in less than a week. For the people of Kunnam, however, there was no forgetting in the first place. The cold-blooded murder of film representative N J Chacko, an unsuspecting victim of a diabolical plan orchestrated by Kurup and his friends, is still as fresh in their memories as 37 years ago when the incident took place.
On January 22, 1984, the gang murdered Chacko, a native of Thathampally in Alappuzha, placed him in a vehicle, and then set it ablaze beside the Kunnam paddy polder on the Painummood-Kollakadavu route in Thazhakara panchayat in Mavelikkara.
Chacko’s wife Santhamma and son Jithin had come down heavily against the release of the film a few months ago, after its promotional teaser seemed to glorify the criminal. However, after the makers arranged an exclusive screening of Kurup for Chacko’s family, Jithin informed the media that the film was doing them justice. “After we registered a complaint, they showed us the film. We are fine with how Kurup is depicted,” he said.
Santhamma was just six months into her pregnancy when Chacko was murdered. Jithin never got to see his father. Murali K P, a native of Kunnam, said the village had never witnessed an incident so shocking in many decades.
“I was in Class 9 then. Early one morning, we received news that a car had caught fire at a paddy field nearby and that the driver burnt to death. Hundreds of people from surrounding areas had gathered there,” he recalled.
Word soon spread that a wealthy Gulf-returnee named Sukumara Kurup was the driver killed in the accident, Murali said. “However, the police later found out that there was another twist to the case and it was another man named Chacko who died. For several years, police officials from across the state kept coming back to the spot as part of the investigation. When all accused persons excluding Kurup were finally arrested, hundreds of people gathered around the police station to get a glimpse of them,” he said. Kurup’s brother-in-law Bhaskara Pillai, friend Shahu and driver Ponnappan were the other accused in the case.
The paddy field in which Chacko was found later came to be known as ‘Chacko padam’, and for many years people thought of it as the devil’s house, Murali said. “It was a remote area. People were scared to go there alone at night.” On the night of the incident, the gang had given a lift to Chacko, who was waiting for a bus to return to Alappuzha at midnight after assessing the ticket collections at the Sree Hari theatre nearby. In the car, they strangled Chacko to death, placed him on the driver’s seat of Kurup’s ambassador car, poured petrol over the vehicle, pushed it on to the paddy field at Kunnam, and then set it on fire.
Chacko was chosen reportedly because he physically resembled Kurup, whose master plan was to collect an insurance amount of Rs 8 lakh after staging his own death. However, though the police immediately identified the car as Kurup’s, they realised in two days that the body was of Chacko. By then, Kurup had fled the country.
As per police records, if alive, Kurup would be 74 years old now. Though his wife and other family members live in various parts of the state, Kurup alone continues to elude the police. Srinath Rajendran’s Kurup is the third film based on the incident. While the 1984 film NH 47 on this topic saw T G Ravi in the role of Kurup, Adoor Gopalakrishnan later loosely adapted the incident in 2016 for Pinneyum with Dileep and Kavya Madhavan in the lead roles. Though Kurup was initially scheduled to be released by last May, Covid-induced restrictions delayed the process.