Jisha rape and murder case: Assam native was not on radar for most part of probe
Kochi: Assam native Ameerul Islam, 23, was not on the cops’ radar for most part of the Jisha murder case investigation despite the police receiving vital scientific evidence like the DNA of the perpetrator. Though the cops prepared a list of people who had gone missing from the region soon after the incident on April 28, Ameerul’s name was not there. The cops questioned the victim’s mother Rajeshwari and sister Deepa repeatedly at various times to know about the migrant labourers who knew her.
“While the accused, during interrogation, admitted to have known the victim much earlier, it’s strange how her mother was in the dark about this. Also the local residents never heard any sound of the perpetrator during the day though two persons had reported hearing the victim talking angrily to someone. They thought that she was having some argument with her mother since it was usual for the two to quarrel over small matters,” sources said.
Though a dog squad was deployed the day after the crime, no progress could be made since the perpetrator washed of the bloodstains in the canal beside the victim’s house. In fact, the first time Ameerul’s name cropped up was when separate units were dispatched to West Bengal, Orissa, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu to investigate the migrant labourers who had earlier worked in the Perumbavur region but returned after the murder.
“A two-member investigation team reached Assam’s Nauga district to question two natives who had returned there. It was during their questioning that the cops learnt about Ameerul’s coming back to his native village and staying for over a month without any job,” they said.
Meanwhile, the new investigation team followed up on the slippers recovered from near the victim’s house and found that the pattern was usually preferred by migrant labourers. They collected the information about an Assamese youth who bought a similar slipper from the shopowner based at Kuruppampaddy.
“He became a key suspect and we traced him using the IMEI number. Later, he admitted to the crime and the DNA also matched,” the sources aid. A probe into the whereabouts of the accused revealed that he has two wives, one at his native place and another at Perumbavur. His wife in Assam is aged around 38 years who has an 18-year-old daughter from another man. His second wife at Perumbavur is relatively younger and they have a one- and-a-half-year-old kid, the sources said.
