Edakkara: The police have traced a missing Malayali woman and her two children to a camp of beggars in Coimbatore.
Mini (40) and her children Ranjith (13) and Ramesh (10) had gone missing in April 2021. They were residents of the Scheduled Tribe colony at Kunippara, Pothukallu, in the Nilambur taluk of Kerala's Malappuram district.
The children were produced before the Child Welfare Committee and the mother in court soon after they were brought back to Kerala.
Mini told the police that she had left home with the children as she could not withstand the atrocities committed by her husband anymore. Her experience of working as a bamboo cutter in Mangaluru earlier gave her the confidence to leave home.
The trio initially reached Manjeri and from there, arrived in Kozhikode. They took a train from Kozhikode and reached Coimbatore where they joined a group of vagrant beggars.
They made a living by begging and kept moving from one city to another in Tamil Nadu. They used to arrive in Coimbatore occasionally; they used to stay at Kuniambatore locality near the site where an overbridge is being constructed. The police located them here the other day.
Hunt begins
Pothukallu police had intervened and registered a case a month after Mini and her children vanished. Mini's husband Soman and his relatives were summoned and their statements were recorded thereafter.
The police stepped in after complaints regarding the suspicious circumstances in which they disappeared. Since children were also among the missing persons, a special team was formed under the supervision of the Malappuram district police chief for pursuing the case.
Breakthrough, finally
There were no significant leads available for a long period of time. However, six months later, a resident of Mini's native place reported that he had spotted them in Coimbatore. Although the investigating team reached the city and conducted a search, the three of them had left the place by then.
Later, police received information that they were seen at Palani, Pollachi, Tirupattur, Palladam, and Mettupalayam. The investigating team scoured these places and trailed groups of beggars. At last, the police received a tip-off that the missing persons had reached Coimbatore again.
A team comprising the Pothukal station house officer V M Sreekumar, sub-inspector K Soman, senior civil police officer K Rajesh, and civil police officers V Akhil and M Krishnadas located Mini and children.
