IDUKKI: With the Kattappana double murder case throwing up recollections of the plot of the 'Drishyam' movie franchise, a recent revelation by the investigation team has further cemented the eerie similarities, with parallels also being drawn between the lives of accused Nitheesh PR and Georgekutty, the character played by Mohanlal in the Malayalam crime thriller series.
As in the sequel, 'Drishyam 2', where Georgekutty concocts the script for a caper and publishes it as a novel, Nitheesh, 31, also published a novel on the online reading app, 'Pratilipi', describing a plot on the lines of his murderous exploits. Nitheesh’s novel, Mahamanthrikam, has had more than 53,000 views. The unfinished book, published between October and December of 2018 has a total of six chapters.
The novel was published two years after he claimed his first victim, a baby born to his live-in partner Vidhya.
According to intelligence sources, Nitheesh practiced witchcraft and in his novel, an evil sorcerer tries to possess an innocent girl by making her a slave to delusion while another wizard attempts to free her. The novel talks about summoning demons through spells and describes tantric techniques.
Although the last chapter says the story will be continued, Nitheesh has yet to publish the rest. he has more than 2,000 followers on the app, and readers have posted comments appreciating his language, with others keenly awaiting the rest of the narrative.
Nitheesh was a sorcerer who brought the entire family of Vidhya under his influence through witchcraft, intelligence wing sources said. “Vidhya met him while doing her postgraduation. Nitheesh and Vidhya never married and he used witchcraft to keep her under his influence. A child born to the couple was murdered by Nitheesh with the support of Vidhya’s father Vijayan in 2016,” an official said.
Vijayan was murdered by Nitheesh in August 2023 following an altercation at a rented house in Kakkattukada, where Vijayan and his family lived. Although police haven’t been able to trace the newborn’s body despite conducting a search at the premises of Vijayan’s former house at Sagara Junction, investigators believe the murder is linked to Nitheesh’s witchcraft.
Nitheesh told officers he murdered the child fearing social disgrace. Vijayan’s body was recovered from a pit under the bedroom of the Kakkattukada house on March 10.
Meanwhile, as the custody period of Nitheesh and his co-accused, Vidhya’s brother Vishnu, 27, ended on Friday, they were produced in court, which remanded them in judicial custody at the sub jails in Muttom and Peermade respectively.
However, the arrest of the third accused, Vidhya’s mother Suma, has not been recorded yet as she is housed in a shelter home in a mentally unstable condition.