Kochi: The police have confirmed the identity of the likely murderer of the woman whose skeletal remains were recovered from a plastic barrel filled with concrete mix on the bank of Vembanad lake near Kumbalam about three months ago.
According to investigators, the victim, Shakunthala, 54, was murdered by T M Sajith, an inspector attached to the State Police Complaints Authority (SPCA). Sajith had committed suicide following the recovery of the body.
He presumably eliminated the woman after she objected to his illicit affair with her daughter, the police said.
As the investigators have so far failed to obtain any substantial evidence to establish this theory, they may apply for permission to conduct a narco-analysis test on the victim’s daughter to confirm the veracity of her testimonies. Although she is believed to be the only person who had knowledge about Sajith’s motives, the police did not get any lead suggesting her direct involvement in the crime.
Shakunthala was the wife of Mavada Damodaran, a resident of Udayamperoor in Ernakulam district.
The police have questioned the driver of the autorickshaw hired by Sajith to transport the plastic barrel. As per his statement, Sajith told him that the barrel was meant for storing water for household use.
Five persons, who helped Sajith to dump the body in the backwaters near the toll plaza at Kumbalam, were also grilled. They told the police that they helped him without knowing that the barrel contained a body.
The Panangad police broke open the barrel and registered a murder case after Manorama reported about a mysterious object found adrift in the Kochi backwaters. The discovery had aroused the curiosity of the locals.
Initially the police had struggled to establish the identity of the victim, however, recovery of a malleolar implant from the ankle joint of the fully decomposed body provided the breakthrough.
Following which the police team visited hospitals providing orthopeedic treatment in Ernakulam, Kottayam, and Alappuzha districts and collected details of female patients who underwent malleolar implant surgery.
Investigations revealed that only six malleolar implants were used in the treatment of fractured bones by hospitals in Kerala during the past two-and-a-half years. The police managed to trace down five others, but a woman who underwent surgery at the VKM Hospital in Tripunithura following an accident was untraceable. Later it was found that the patient was Shakunthala who had gone missing since September 2016.
DNA analysis of samples collected from her daughter confirmed the victim’s identity.
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