Kochi: The accused in the gruesome Elanthoor human sacrifice case who have been charged for the double murder may also be booked for sexually assaulting the victims. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has sought a legal opinion in this regard.

The inclusion of the stringent charge that the accused sexually assaulted the two women before robbing their gold ornaments in the FIR will make the police case stronger. As part of the process, the potency test of the first and second accused, Mohammad Shafi and Bhagval Singh, were carried out on Monday.

The court had directed the cops to subject all three accused in the case to medical examinations every three days. During the exercise the other day, suspicious injuries were found on the body of Shafi and Singh, which the SIT thinks will prove crucial to the rape charges against them.

Meanwhile, the sister and the son of victim Padmam have identified her gold ornaments, robbed by the accused after brutally murdering her. 

As part of evidence collection, Shafi was on Monday taken to the private finance firm at Gandhi Nagar where the accused pledged the gold.  The staff there identified him. Shafi obtained Rs 1.10 lakh by pledging 39 grams of gold ornament belonging to Padmam.

Shafi had an eye on Elanthoor couple’s property

Key accused and conspirator Shafi also planned to threaten the co-accused couple, Singh and his wife Laila, and force them to hand over their property, police said.

Shafi, who trapped the couple by befriending them on social media using a fake profile ID ‘Sridevi’, ployed to use the same strategy to blackmail them later by creating another fake ID.

The 52-year-old Shafi had succeeded in convincing the Elanthoor couple to perform the sorcery, promising them wealth and prosperity. According to police, he also told Singh and Laila, immediately after the gruesome murders, that Rs 20 lakh could be earned on the sale of the victim’s flesh. The police recovered 10 kg of human flesh from the refrigerator in the couple’s house.

Exhumed body parts to be examined again

The recovered body parts of the victims will be again subjected to a detailed examination at the Kottayam Medical College. The scientific examination of Rosly’s body will be conducted first.

Only the initial part of the autopsy exercise was completed. More examination needed to be done and hence the delay in handing over the bodies to relatives, police said.

Rosly’s daughter Manju Varghese on Monday lodged complaints with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and MM Mani,MLA, demanding the quick handing over of her body.