The Kerala police have its share of daredevils, but none so legendary as the so-called “Kannur squad”.(This is the fifth part of a series on Kerala police officers, who are on the hunt for criminals. Watch this space for more.)
Some criminals are confidence personified. They think they can get away with anything, until they find their match.
Some investigators never say die. They would pursue their target to the end of the world, until they see the dazed look on their prey’s eyes.
The Kerala police have its share of daredevils, but none so legendary as the so-called “Kannur squad”. The crack team had its genesis in the disturbing times when reports surfaced about militant recruitment in Kerala for the killing fields of Kashmir.
The squad went on to bust several criminal gangs within the state and beyond for about a decade. Led by additional sub inspector Baby George, the team comprised additional sub inspector Mathew Joseph, senior civil police officers Raphy Ahmed, P Vinod Kumar, K Manoj Kumar, C K Rajasekharan, Reji Scaria, C Sunil Kumar and K Jayarajan.
The exploits of the squad have become part of the police lore. The Kannur squad was the last resort when the police investigation hit a dead-end.
That was how they were entrusted with a vehicle theft case in Koothuparamba in 2010. The lorry theft was one among a series of vehicle thefts in the period. The squad interrogated the usual suspects and went through the detailed call history of several others.
Makkappi, a habitual carjacker, was among them. His mobile phone was switched off on the day of the theft. It remained so for several days until he resurfaced in Tamil Nadu. George and team sensed something was amiss. They nabbed Makkappi, who eventually confessed to have driven away the lorry from Koothuparamba. He said that he handed over the vehicle to one Rasak in Kozhikode.
Rasak proved to be a tough catch. The officers spent a week monitoring his calls and retracing his routine ports of call. That was hardly the end of work. In custody, Rasak said that he sold the lorry to some mysterious agents in Coimbatore.
Thus started the squad’s pursuit outside Kerala. The agents operated secretively, avoiding any interaction with strangers and never doing business with people they did not know. They kept changing their phone numbers and shifted from place to place.
The cops made Rasak to call them and offer to sell one more lorry. The agents fixed a time and place to strike a deal. The officers rented a room in Coimbatore. George and Jayaraj stayed in the room with Rasak, while the others watched over from strategic points outside the lodge.
Read Cops on Trail Part - II: The cop who lorded over a racket of thieves
The agents were supposed to pay Rasak a visit at 10:30 am. No one came until noon. When contacted, they said that they were on the way. At 2:30 pm, Rasak called them again. They said that they were around the corner.
Within five minutes, an agent walked into the room, only to be greeted by George’s pistol. The officer made the visitor sit in a corner at gunpoint. Jayaraj got out of the room and saw two more persons standing in the corridor. Both of them were well-built but Jayaraj surprised them by dragging one of them into the room. His partner fled, with the other officers in pursuit.
George was in a bizarre positions. He had two hardened criminals at gunpoint but he could not shoot even if they tried to escape or charged at him. An encounter was the last thing he wanted in unknown territory. George and Jayaraj, however, never revealed their cards. They stood guard to the suspects inside the locked room, while their team members caught the third agent from the Ukkadam bus stand. The team recovered two stolen lorries from the agents.
Gloves point to murderers
The Kannur squad’s most exciting mission was perhaps a cross-country chase for two youngsters who had killed a Gulf-based businessman at Thrikkaripur. The team traveled more than 6,000 kilometers over 16 days until they caught up with the suspects.
A B Abdul Salam Hajee, aged 58, was killed in his house on August 4, 2013. The house had state-of-the-art security systems, including surveillance cameras, remotely controlled gates and sensor-operated doors.
The team that investigated Salam Hajee caseThe gang found their entry to the house and tied up the Hajee, his wife and children. They forced their victims to part with their gold ornaments before stabbing the Hajee to death. The assailants spoke in Hindi, the relative said.
Read | Cops on trail- Part III: A midnight sortie into a fortified village of thieves
They were so meticulous in their planning that they even destroyed the surveillance cameras. Still, one of them left behind a glove. The sweat inside the glove provided a DNA sample that would be a valuable piece of evidence in the court.
The investigators found that two mobile phone SIMs had been activated in the area just before the murder. The team fished out the SIMs’ owners. The team nabbed five suspects. The robbery and murder were planned by two people who were known to the victim and his family. They spoke in Hindi during the operation to mislead the investigators.
Two other suspects had given the police the slip. Asgar and Shihab fled to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. They were helped out by a friend.
Read | Cops on trail- Part IV: Everybody loves a theft in this Bengal village
The squad followed them to Kanpur but the duo changed their mobile phones and started using land phones. The officers searched the town for the suspects in the guise of marriage brokers and laborers.
Then they got a tipoff that the suspects were traveling to Allahabad on the way to Nepal. The duo had boarded a bus to Allahabad. The police officers got on to a faster train to Allahabad in time. They were waiting for Asgar and Shihab when the duo got down at the bus station.
Had the officers been half an hour late, the suspects would have safely crossed the border to Nepal. Both of them were flown back to Kerala the next day.
The Kannur squad no longer exists, with its members serving in various sections of the police.
Read: Latest Kerala news | Kochuveli-Bengaluru-Mysuru train to start this month, says Kodikkunnil Suresh
