Kochi: Ameerul Islam may be holding back his real motives for tormenting and murdering Jisha, the police suspect. A special team will head for Ameerul’s native village in Assam to look for clues that might explain the horrific murder of the Dalit student in her ramshackle house near Perumbavoor on April 28.
The accused, who was held from Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu, has been remanded for 14 days. He was interrogated by Director General of Police Loknath Behra in Assamese at the Aluva Police Club on Friday.
The investigators cannot digest Ameerul’s claim that he killed Jisha only because she laughed at him and later shooed him away. The accused had said Jisha threatened to beat him up with her slippers after he showed her an obscene gesture near her house on April 28 morning.
Ameerul told the investigators that he had run-ins with Jisha even before. She kept mocking him whenever they crossed paths, he said, making him a laughing stock among friends.
He also claimed that he went to Jisha’s house to tell her not to tease him again, but was at a loss explaining the presence of a knife on him and the brutalities inflicted on his victim.
Ameerul's strange behaviour remains unexplained too. The police have been told that he left his lodging at Iringole with a young man on several nights. Ameerul has not replied to questions about his mysterious companion.
The police are further puzzled by Jisha’s last sentence, in Malayalam: “This is why I do not trust anyone.”
Ameerul cannot comprehend or speak Malayalam even though he had been living in Kerala for some time. Jisha’s neighbours who overheard the conversation said she was very angry. Was Jisha speaking to Ameerul or someone else? Or was she speaking on phone in the presence of the accused?
Another contradiction in the statement of the accused is the time when he reached Jisha’s house. Ameerul initially told the police that he reached his victim’s house at 2 pm after a drinking bout. He later corrected himself and said he did not go there before 4.00 pm. The neighbours, however, have told the police that they saw a man in a yellow shirt slipping into the canal after 6 pm.
