Kottayam: A telephonic conversation between one of the suspects in the Thodupuzha family murder case and an unidentified friend can turn out to be a crucial evidence, the police said on Saturday. The call was made by one of the three persons arrested from near Thiruvananthapuram ahead of the crime that claimed the life of four members of a family near Vannapuram in Idukki district earlier this week.
“Crores (of rupees) are to come soon,” says one of the persons, apprehended in Pangode near the state capital, speaking to his friends over mobile phone. He asks one of them to bring Rs 50,000. When the friend says he doesn’t have the money, the person, now in detention, says, one will have to do certain “critical tasks” to amass wealth.
As per the soundtrack, the man goes on to say the money being demanded was meant to be passed on to a certain “boss” in Thiruvananthapuram. Such a deed would make one “famous”, he adds. The caller, who has been an accused in several cases of financial fraud, used to frequent Thodupuzha, according to police sources. Investigation is now progressing based on these clues.
Also arrested are a retired police officer and another person. They were caught based on statements given by the man, the first arrested in the case, from Nedumkandam in Idukki district’s Udumbanchola taluk.
So far, the police have interrogated around 100 people as part of the case, where 52-year-old Kanattu Veettil Krishnan, his wife and two children were found buried in the backyard of their desolate house in semi-hilly Kambakakkanam on Wednesday. The crime, it was later learned, was committed on Sunday night.
The people from whom information was collected are those who had telephonic conversation with Krishnan in the recent past, the police said. Some of them revealed to the cops that they did have financial disputes with Krishnan, who was into performing pujas as a profession. Among those being grilled include certain police officers, who were taken into custody based on certain strong suspicions, investigators told Manorama Online.
The call traffic on Krishnan’s phone will be vital in the probe, police said, adding that the deceased used to have several SIM cards in his mobile set. The probers are zeroing in on those numbers Krishnan would use despite the constant change of SIM cards. The police have compiled the details of the people with those phone numbers. Some of them live outside the state.
Police have examined CCTV footage in 10 establishments along the Vannapuram-Chelachuvadu state highway that runs along the vicinity of the Krishnan’s house. They show that pickup vans, jeeps and cars passing by the way. None of them were found to have making suspicious movements, but the police are probing the owners of vehicles that had gone to Chelachuvadu and returned without delay.
The cyber cell, too, has joined the investigation. Its personnel are using a specialised system that would let them know the companies whose signal is available in the area.
