KOCHI: Valsala Krishnankutty, a 54-year-old widow from Punnapara in Alappuzha, got the shock of her life when a group of police officers knocked on her doors and asked how a SIM card taken in her name was used by an accused in BJP leader Renjith Sreenivasan’s murder.
After a detailed probe based on Valsala’s statement, the police found out how one of the accused, Badusha, with the alleged help of SDPI panchayat member Sulfikkar S, managed to get her Aadhaar number and other identification details to purchase the SIM card on August 10, 2021 and used it for plotting the December 19 murder.
“I was shocked when a police team came to me asking for the details of the SIM card taken in my name. It was only when the police told me the issue, I understood how they duped me,” Valsala told TNIE.
“I work as a domestic help and stay with my sister. How can they do this to me,” asked Valsala, whose only son had passed away a few years ago. Valsala said she gave her Aadhaar details to Badusha, who runs a mobile shop named ‘B&B” to take a SIM card. “I went to the shop and sought his help to get a new SIM. He asked me to stand in front of a camera and took my photograph twice. He gave me a SIM. I only know this much,” Valsala said.
The police have registered a case against Badusha and Sulfikkar, 31, at the Punnapra station based on the woman’s statement. Sulfikkar is the member of ward No 12 of Punnapara panchayat. “The probe revealed that it was on the direction of Sulfikkar that the woman’s documents were misused to take another SIM in her name,” the officer said.
As per the FIR dated December 31, though the accused gave her a new SIM after processing her customer application form (CAF), he took a second photograph of her and processed another form telling her that some error had occurred while uploading the first CAF, and it had to be processed again. “The SIM was taken in August and it reveals the accused were into some sort of planning right from that time,” said an intelligence officer.