RANIPET: Thirty-one years after he went into hiding, a man accused in a 1994 murder case has been arrested by the Ranipet police from Assam’s Dibrugarh district on Friday, concluding an extensive and decades long search for the fugitive. The man, identified as Baskar Jyothi Gogoi (57), is being brought to Tamil Nadu. Once he arrives, a warrant will be issued and a trial will take place in court.
The police team, led by Arakkonam DSP Y Jaffer Siddik and Sub-Inspector Narayanaswamy, tracked him down under the supervision of Ranipet Superintendent of Police Vivekanand Shukla.
The case had remained one of Ranipet police’s longest unsolved files, with no leads for decades, and Gogoi had never once been arrested. The case pertains to the murder of a 20-something-old woman on March 19, 1994, by her husband RG Chowdary and his accomplice, Baskar Jyothi Gogoi.
Speaking to TNIE, DSP Jaffer said that both Chowdary and Gogoi had been working as sailors at INS Garuda in Kochi in 1991-92.
During that time, Chowdary confided in Gogoi that he was not on good terms with his wife and wanted to eliminate her. One of the issues he reportedly had with his wife was that her parents had lied to him that she had studied till class 10 but she had not. Gogoi agreed to help, demanding Rs 30,000 for the job.
In 1993, to avoid suspicion, Chowdary got himself transferred to INS Rajali in Arakkonam. From 1992 to 1994, he saved up the money and handed the amount along with travel tickets to Gogoi.
The duo then murdered Chowdary’s wife by pouring kerosene on her and setting her ablaze in the INS Rajali quarters where they had been staying in Arakkonam. Gogoi fled the scene while Chowdary claimed it was a suicide.
A case was registered at Arakkonam Town police station. Preliminary investigation raised suspicions, and forensic evidence, along with an analysis of Chowdary’s travel history, confirmed foul play. On March 31, police confirmed it was a murder. Chowdary was arrested, confessed to the crime, and named Gogoi as his accomplice.
Police began an extensive search for Gogoi—at his workplace in Kerala, his hometown in Dibrugarh, and his training centre. It was found that he escaped the camp on 25 March 1994. But he remained elusive. At one point, there were even rumours that he had died.
Meanwhile, Chowdary, a native of Maharashtra, was convicted by a sessions court in Ranipet and later his appeal in the High Court was dismissed in 2005. The hunt for Gogoi had reached a deadend in 2008, however even after that it was pursued in regular intervals in all directions.
In January 2025, DSP Siddik revisited the file.
The case piqued his interest as it was well-drafted. The team decided to check the voter list in Dibrugarh for leads.
"We were lucky to get a detail regarding Gogoi’s mother from a communication sent by the naval headquarters in Mumbai. In 2008, INS Rajali had written to Mumbai seeking information regarding Gogoi, and it had mentioned Gogoi was ‘under the care of his mother’," said DSP Siddik.
Using this clue, the team tracked down the polling booth where Gogoi’s mother had voted—and then found Gogoi’s own name listed in the most recent election rolls.
"Given that a district has an approximate population of 15 to 20 lakh, it was extremely difficult for us to sift through the voter list. It was all in Assamese. We used Google Lens to translate and read. We filtered the search using surname, age, gender. It took us three months to find his name. He was found to be residing in Shabua village," Siddik said.
The team then used AI aging software to generate a probable image of Gogoi when he is 60 using an image when he was 25. With the assistance of the Assam police and that AI-generated image—which closely matched his current appearance—they tracked down his house in Dibrugarh and arrested him.
The inspiration to search through AI, Siddik said, had come from Kerala police, who recently tracked murders dating back to 2006 using the same technology. "This has given hope that long pending cases can be solved using AI."
Speaking to TNIE, SP Vivekanand Shukla said that they had aimed to resolve all long-pending cases, especially gruesome ones like murders.
"This was the longest pending case in Ranipet. Gogoi, despite playing a major role, was never arrested, but was married and living with children in Assam. We are happy that we have finally solved it. We believe that justice should be served, no matter how long the case takes. It is our basic duty, and we will continue to solve such long-pending cases."