Kozhikode: No one except the murderers have any clue about the identity of a person whose severed body parts were found mostly on seashore here nearly two years ago. Even after the details of missing persons from Kerala were scoured by the investigators, the identity of the male victim remains unknown still though it is probable that the body parts belonged to a young migrant labourer who was working in Kerala. The Crime Branch had taken up the investigation as the local police couldn't make a headway even as a DNA test concluded that the recovered body parts belonged to one person.
The suspected murder came to light in bits and pieces in June-July of 2017. People out for an evening stroll on the Chaliyam Beach at Beypore in Kerala's Kozhikode district were startled to notice a severed hand lying on the sand. The incident was reported on June 28, 2017, and over the next couple of days other body parts, including the severed head in a party decomposed state, were found one after the another.
The hands
A case was initially filed on the discovery of the severed left hand. The Beypore police moved it to the mortuary. Even as the police probe into the incident was progressing, the right hand was found at the same beach three days later on July 1, 2017. The police then confirmed it to be a case of murder and the second case was also filed.
The torso
Five days later, on July 6, 2017, the Mukkam police found just the torso, without the limbs and head. The torso was found in a sack by the roadside at Thiruvambadi Estate in the hill-range area of the district, kilometres away from the beach.
As the limbs and the head had been severed, the police and people could not immediately identify the torso to be that of a human.
Another part emerges
As the Mukkam police took up the probe, on July 6, a decomposed severed head was found from the same spot on the Chaliyam Beach from where the hands was found. Thus, the fourth case was registered.
Though the hands, torso and the unidentifiable head were found, the legs were still missing. Then a DNA test was held to ascertain that all the available body parts belonged to one person. The results were out on September 16, 2017 confirming that all the body parts belonged to one individual.
Soon, all the four cases were handed over to the Crime Branch on October 4, 2017.
Though the news on the severed body parts were widely reported in the media, none came forward, enquiring about the victim. No leads on the murderers were also received. Enquiries were done on the gunny sack in which the torso was found. The sack was made by a company that supplied gunny bags to several parts of Kerala and thus failed to shed any light on the issue.
As the body parts were found from the beach and the estate premises, no CCTV images were available either. With no forthcoming evidence, the probe team decided to go for scientific methods to solve the case.
Based on the skull, three drawings were made on the computer. The officers have decided to widely circulate these drawings on social media platforms.
Preliminary inferences
The police suspect that the victim was a migrant after studying the post-mortem report and the drawings in detail. The autopsy had found basmati rice, tomato and onion in his stomach. Traces of liquor were also found.
The murdered man was a youth, approximately 25 years old, with a height of 165 cm. His teeth had tobacco stain. Based on these findings and the drawings, the police concluded that the victim could be from another state.
The post-mortem report also said that an injury to the neck was the cause of the death. After the murder, a sharp machine (such as an equipment used to cut trees, rocks etc) could have been used to severe the body parts.
The torso was one week older than the hand that was first found on the beach.
Blood was not found clotted even at the area from where the torso was found. This leads to the suspicion that the boy parts were scattered hours or a day after the murder. The Crime Branch has concluded that more than one person was involved in the murder.
Iruvanjippuzha River flows close to the area from where the torso was found. The police said that the culprits could have left the torso on the roadside and threw the limbs into the Iruvanjippuzha, which is a tributary of the Chaliyar River. These body parts could have thus reached the Chaliyar River, which flows into the sea. Chaliyam Beach is the point where the river joins the sea and thus the severed parts could have been washed ashore.
Widespread inquiries were also done in the Mukkam area where lot of migrant workers reside. But no leads were received.
