Kasaragod: 'Man who played Georgekutty three years before Drishyam released, arrested'
This was the headline the Kerala Police seemed to angle for while announcing the arrest of a 52-year-old civil contractor -- the alleged live-in partner of a minor Adivasi girl missing since 2010 and now presumed dead.

But behind this theatrical line lies a 15-year-long battle waged by a tribal family -- a case that brings out both the diligence and the indifference of the Kerala Police.

The accused, Biju Paulose, a native of Bappunkayam near Panathur on the Kerala-Karnataka border, had long been named by the girl's parents as the man responsible for her disappearance. Yet the police acted only now -- just days before the High Court was scheduled to hear an interlocutory application filed by the girl's mother seeking a CBI probe.

The girl was reported missing on June 6, 2010 -- six days before her 18th birthday -- at the Ambalathara Police Station. Biju, a karate trainer too, was 37 then.

Day after day, from morning till evening, the parents -- members of the Mavilan Scheduled Tribe community -- stood outside the station, pleading with officers to accept their complaint. They never gave up. The FIR was registered only on January 27, 2011, nearly eight months later, after the intervention by the Kanhangad DySP.

At Saturday's press conference, the Crime Branch did not tread into the long lapses in investigation before and after the registration of the FIR. But the officers claimed to have cracked the case within five months of taking over the investigation on the High Court’s orders.

"We walked back to 2010, and beyond, to piece together what had happened to the girl. We traced back to her class 10 days in 2007 when he first made contact with her," said P Prakash, IG, Kerala State Crime Branch. "They were fellow singers in the same musical troupe. She died the day she was reported missing -- June 6, 2010," the officer said at a press conference. The Crime Branch’s conclusion mirrored an earlier finding by Bekal DySP Sunil Kumar CK, submitted to the High Court in a sealed cover on September 18, 2023. However, the DySP did not act on his findings.

Late Friday night, a 13-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) picked up Biju from Madikeri, where he was working as a contractor. He was brought to Kasaragod and arrested on Saturday.

Biju has been booked under Section 366 (kidnapping a woman to force or seduce her to illicit intercourse) and Section 376 (rape) of the IPC -- both carrying punishments ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment. The police have also invoked Section 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, carrying a punishment of life imprisonment and a fine.

However, the Crime Branch has not yet charged him with murder or destruction of evidence, though the girl was last seen by Biju, and reportedly went missing from his rented house in Kanhangad. "We've only invoked charges we can prove," said the IG.

But the Crime Branch's revelations on Saturday have only deepened the family's anguish rather than bring closure. "The police could have invoked these charges when we first went to them in 2010," said the girl’s father (52), a quarry worker turned coconut plucker. "We had named his mother Eliyamma also as an accused. But the police have not booked her," he said. He, along with his elder daughter, travelled from Ennappara in Kodom-Belur panchayat, 40km away, to the Crime Branch office in Kasaragod on hearing of Biju's arrest.

"There were multiple eyewitnesses who said the minor girl and Biju lived as partners in two rented houses in Kanhangad," said Thekkan Sunil Kumar, general secretary of Kerala Pattika Jana Samajam (KPJS). The Dalit organisation took up the family's legal fight in 2021. Its intervention led to the High Court monitoring the investigation, and transferring the case of the Crime Branch from Bekal DySP in December 2024.

Body found?
IG Prakash did not comment on why these charges were not invoked earlier by the local police. But he said he had a breakthrough in April when his SIT revisited an old, unidentified set of skeletal remains found in August 2011 -- 14 months after the girl went missing. The remains, recovered from the mouth of the Chandragiri river within Kasaragod police limits, matched the height and age of the missing girl, he said.

In April, the SIT exhumed the remains from the Kasaragod municipal cemetery and sent samples for DNA testing. "We are waiting for the results," said the IGP. "But our case will hold even if the DNA does not match."

The reason: a pair of anklets found with the remains was identified by the girl's cousins. Along with a black thread with an amulet, they had been preserved by the Kasaragod Town Police for potential future identification.
This is the first part of the series on the Kasaragod Adivasi girl missing case. Click to read the second part.