Pathanamthitta: The murder in cold blood of a middle-aged housewife in 2006 saw the police chasing an absconding suspect for 17 long years before they realised the real perpetrator was at arm’s length.
The Crime Branch unit in Pathanamthitta on July 11 arrested 75-year-old Janardanan Nair, a retired postmaster on the charges of murdering 50-year-old Remadevi, his wife. Police attributed the primary motive behind the murder to a dispute between the couple over a 'tubular pregnancy', although the cops are yet to collect adequate evidence to establish this theory.
According to a source, the investigation team is slated to examine the records at the Government Medical College in Kottayam, where the victim was reported to have undergone treatment for the condition.
So how did the Crime Branch crack the gruesome murder and arrest the victim’s husband?
On May 26, 2006, Remadevi was found dead in a pool of blood inside her house near Pullad. The jurisdictional police registered a case soon after and launched a massive manhunt to nab the suspect - a missing young migrant worker from Tamil Nadu, who, at the time, was staying near her house.
There were no 'direct links' but the cops carried on with the search for years, all based on the theory of the mysterious disappearance of the migrant labourer right after the crime. But in time the leads began to dissipate gradually, and the case went cold.
However, the police were in for a surprise when they traced a woman to Ambasamudram last year - Arputha Mani - who had eloped with Chudala Muthu, who had been identified as the prime suspect early on. As part of tracing Muthu, a police team had earlier gone to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and even camped there for about a month, though to no avail.
Having attempted to contact Remadevi a couple of times, Muthu, a construction worker who stayed nearby, had fled after she was murdered.
“Muthu had already parted ways with Mani but what she revealed about him became the turning point in the case. Contrary to a claim by Nair in his writ petition to the Kerala High Court that Muthu had committed the murder and fled the scene immediately, the woman told us that she eloped with him from the location only one-and-a-half days after the murder,” explained A Sunil Raj, Inspector, Crime Branch, Pathanamthitta.
This statement prompted the police to relook at the pieces of evidence collected thus far. An analysis of the forensic tests showed strands of hair collected from the victim’s hands belonged to a middle-aged man. Muthu, on the other hand, was just 26 years old at the time of the crime.
“We checked these hair strands, which were grey and dyed black, for 42 parameters; most of it matched with that of Nair. Based on the evidence, we questioned him once again; he finally confessed to the crime,” the official added.
Nair, who was remanded to judicial custody, is at present lodged at the Kottarakkara sub-jail. The Crime Branch will soon file a custody application for further interrogation and evidence collection.
The case was first probed by Koipuram police; they investigated for around seven months. It was later handed over to Alappuzha Crime Branch in 2007 and then to the Pathanamthitta Crime Branch in 2019. Though the investigators had discovered the knife used in the murder from a well inside the compound, no DNA test could be conducted on it.
An official source, meanwhile, said the residents of the area had earlier accused Nair of murder after he chose not to come forward demanding a detailed investigation.
When the residents of the area constituted an action council and approached the superintendent of police in Pathanamthitta, Nair moved the High Court demanding an inquiry into the case. About four years later, he demolished the house where the murder had taken place subsequently moving to Thrissur.
Nair and Remadevi have two children. They are currently settled elsewhere after their marriages.
