How Kerala cop nailed murder accused after 28 years

A cop went undercover for a year, posing as a bank employee in a remote agrarian village in Theni, Tamil Nadu, to arrest a murder accused who had been absconding for 28 years. M Maariyappan, a senior Civil Police Officer (CPO) from the Kumily police station in Idukki, blended in so well with the people of Varasanadu.

The accused, Mahadevan (now 48), had been on the run since 1997 after being named the fourth accused in the murder of his uncle, Ganeshan, following a family dispute over property. The crime happened at Chenkara, near Kumily, and the other three accused—Lingam (Ganeshan's elder brother), and two relatives, Dhanaraj and Balachandran—were tried and jailed, but later released due to lack of evidence. Mahadevan, however, fled and remained untraceable for decades.

The case was reopened recently as part of a drive to close long-pending (LP) files in the Kumily police station limits. Investigators learned that Mahadevan had married a relative in Kumily and lived in an isolated area in Theni. Initial attempts to trace him through his mobile phone failed due to poor network connectivity in the forest-like region where he lived.

"Tracking his number was of no use as he rarely used the phone. Eventually, we located his wife’s number and traced the family’s whereabouts, but we needed to be sure it was really him," said CPO C P Ratheesh.

That’s when CPO Maariyappan, who had local ties in Theni and was fluent in Tamil, was brought into the mission. Posing as a bank employee, he frequently visited Varasanadu, even staying there briefly, gradually building rapport with residents. "He built a good rapport with the people and gathered all the information we needed," Ratheesh said.

Once his identity was confirmed, Maariyappan personally approached Mahadevan, a daily wage worker employed in agriculture, and requested that he surrender. When Mahadevan refused, the police team decided to act. On the night of June 20, a team led by Inspector Sujith P S and comprising Sub Inspector Ananthu Mohan, CPOs Ratheesh C P and Maariyappan, travelled to Theni.

The next morning, they visited Mahadevan’s house, where only his wife and two school-aged sons were present. Despite assurances that she would bring her husband to the police, Mahadevan remained unreachable by phone. The officers then told his wife they would wait at the Varasanadu police station.

Sometime later, Mahadevan called. "We asked him to come to the station for a discussion. He arrived and was taken into custody," said SHO Ratheesh.

Mahadevan has since been remanded and is currently lodged at the Peermade Sub-Jail. The trial in the case is yet to begin.