THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Many clueless crime cases and murders that could hardly be differentiated from suicides are tracked by policemen through tireless efforts. Over 60 such policemen received the state police chief’s badge of honour for detective excellence on Saturday. One of the detectives, S. Chandrakumar, had just taken charge as Parassala Circle Inspector when he started reading the two month-old casesheet of a suicide which was about to be closed.
The report said that drunkard Kannan, who hailed from Tamil Nadu, hanged himself behind the house of his landlord Indira as he suffered from acute dermatological ailment. While reading one of the witness’ statements, the CI bumped upon a sentence that said the body was taken out of the house to the hospital.
Mr Chandrakumar went back to the doctor who conducted the autopsy and the doctor opined that it could be a suicide or strangulation. On re-interrogation, the police team found that Indira, wife of an NRI, was having an extramarital affair with her tenant. The man was strangulated with her shawl when Kannan, a psoriasis patient, caught her in a compromising position with another youth named Praveen. Both the suspects were jailed and the case is still pending in court.
Similarly, DySP S. Amminikuttan, who was CI of Kilimanoor, was left with no clues when he was assigned to crack the infamous murder and loot case of deputy tahsildar Shailaja. With no special leads available, Mr Amminikuttan and team interrogated around 1,500 people who were clients of Shailaja’s husband who ran a finance firm.
The bank statements of some of the clients were verified and they zeroed in on an ex-service man who got a big fortune a day after the murder. It was found that the man had gone to a blacksmith and he was arrested. Circle Inspector M. Anilkumar and his senior DysP Prathapan Nair were among those who received badges for cracking the Attingal twin murder case involving techie Nino Mathew.
While awarding badges for the year, SPC T.P. Senkumar said that detectives were not made by training but were born.
“Some officers are fit for law and order maintenance and then there are cops who are born with tracking abilities and persistence. Many of these detectives spend from their pockets, brainstorm and toil day and night to crack the case,” he said.
