Chengannur: Sherin, 36, the software engineer, who is accused of murdering his father and dumping his body in a river, bought the petrol to burn the body from a filling station in Thiruvalla, the police said.
He used around 7 litres of petrol to torch the severed body parts. The police recovered the remaining fuel from the godown of their building in Chengannur town. Employees at the filling station identified Sherin and confirmed that he had purchased petrol on that particular day.
According to the police, his attempt to flee in his own car made their job easy. The police could track the movement of the vehicle studying the footage from closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed in various places along the route.
Joy V. John, 69, of Uzhathil, Vazharmangalam near Chengannur, was allegedly killed by Sherin on May 25 following financial and property disputes. The accused was nabbed by the police from a lodge in Kottayam, and during interrogation he confessed to his complicity in the crime.
The initial probe was conducted by a 22-member team headed by DySP K. R. Sivasuthan Pillai and CI G. A. Ajayanath. On day two, two more SIs were included in the squad. The preliminary investigation team comprised eight sub-inspectors and members of the Special Investigation Support Team (SIST) under the District Police Chief.
The police could track down the car’s movement by examining the CCTV camera visuals from select locations in Chengannur and nearby towns after Joy’s wife Mariamma filed a man-missing complaint with them on Wednesday evening. The footage from a CCTV camera installed at a hotel in Thiruvalla revealed that he was there till 8.30 p. m. next day.
The police nabbed Sherin from a lodge in Kottayam after tracing down the car with registration number KL-2 T5550. Unconfirmed reports said that the police have recovered the vehicle.
The police had sent the information along with his photograph to police stations across the State to prevent Sherin from crossing the border and travelling to Bangalore or Chennai, where he had worked.
