KOZHIKODE: For years, N P Vijayan has kept a silent vigil at the door of his home in West Hill. Every passing motorcycle that sounded like his son’s, every familiar laugh from a group of boys down the street would stir a flicker of hope in his heart.
For six long years, he waited for his son, Vijil, to walk through that door, just as he had promised on the morning of March 24, 2019, when he left to meet his friends, saying, “I’ll be back soon.”
That hope was brutally extinguished this week. For Vijil’s friends confessed to a truth more horrifying than any nightmare Vijayan could have imagined. His son wasn’t coming back. Vijil, 29 at the time of his disappearance, had died that very same day. The heart-wrenching revelation in the six-year-old missing person case came after the state police chief ordered a reinvestigation into old cases.
A special team, led by Kozhikode Town ACP P Bijuraj, began to piece together the final hours of Vijil’s life. Suspicion quickly fell on the three friends -- Nikhil, Deepesh, and Ranjith -- who were with him on the day he vanished. Under intense questioning, the friends confessed that he died because of an overdose of drugs.
According to the Elathur police, the four friends had gathered in a secluded area near Sarovaram BioPark to use drugs on March 24, 2019. “There, Vijil was allegedly injected with a fatal overdose of brown sugar,” said Elathur SHO K R Ranjith.
“As he lost consciousness, his friends, instead of seeking medical help, panicked. When they realised he was dead, they buried Vijil’s body in the nearby marshland, weighing it down with stones.”
The officer said the trio also admitted to returning to the burial site eight months later.
“They dug up what was left of Vijil’s remains, and in a final, desperate act to erase all evidence, scattered his bones in the sea. We need to gather the evidence, especially from where the group buried the body, and a scientific examination needs to be carried out before confirming the details,” he said.
It is learnt the police are not fully convinced of the drug overdose explanation and are checking the possibility of murder. On Monday, the police registered the arrest of Nikhil Kulangarakandy, 35, and S Deepesh, 27. And on Tuesday, the Koyilandy court allowed the police a three-day custody of the duo. According to the statements of Nikhil, a resident of Eranjipalam, and Deepesh, of Vengeri, they left Vijil’s bike and mobile phone at the Kozhikode railway station after burying the body.
The accused were taken to the railway station premises on Tuesday for evidence collection and the police found Vijil’s bike. They have also revealed that they threw away the mobile phone after deleting Vijil’s call records. Officers said evidence collection will be carried out at the Sarovaram Biopark on Wednesday morning.
Meanwhle, a manhunt is under way for the third accused, Ranjith. They face charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and destruction of evidence. For the investigators, the confession is a major breakthrough but it also presents a near-impossible task: recovering any physical evidence of a crime so meticulously hidden.
For Vijayan, though, the revelations of the friends came as a shock. He now suspects that the group murdered his son.
“The story the accused told the police is unbelievable, my son did not use drugs. Every time I saw his friends on the street, I would ask, ‘Have you heard from him? Do you know where my Vijil is?’ They would look me in the eye and say he went on a train, that he had left home like that twice earlier, he would come back when he was ready. They told me not to worry. They drank tea with me. They watched me waiting for my son. They were cheating me. I really suspect they killed my son, it was not an overdose of drugs,” Vijayan said.