Thrissur man found dead inside house, another body recovered from septic tank

Thrissur: The residents of Anjoor, a village about 13 km from Thrissur, are in utter shock after the bodies of two men – one died by suicide and the other assumed to be a case of murder – were found inside the same house.

It was around 2 pm on Monday that the locals discovered a body, believed to be of a youth, inside a septic tank attached the house of Valiya Parambil Sivaraman, who had reportedly hung himself on August 25.

Sivaraman's friend and fellow villager, Pratheesh had been missing since July 18. “The villagers are of the opinion that the body they found is Pratheesh's,” said an officer with the Kunnamkulam Police that is probing the case. “Pratheesh had an ear cut off in an accident. The body recovered from the septic tank is also missing an ear,” he said.

Pratheesh's family had filed a missing person's case and meanwhile the villagers had begun a search in the locality. It was during the search that the villagers found the slabs of a septic tank had been moved from its original place.

“The Kunnamkulam Police went to the location based on an anonymous call. The slabs of the septic tank were misplaced and we could see soil dumped inside the tank. The body is in a state of decomposition and the identity of the individual can be ascertained only from a DNA test,” the officer said.

According to the police, Sivaraman and Pratheesh were close friends. Sivaraman has been living alone for quite some time and Pratheesh was a frequent visitor to the house where they consumed alcohol. Sivaraman's body had been discovered three days after his presumed suicide.

Even though Pratheesh, 40, son of Cherillkkalil Veettil Kumaran, went missing on July 18, his wife Reena had filed the missing case on September 1. “Pratheesh left home saying he would return in two-three days,” the police said adding that Pratheesh was accused in three criminal cases.