Alappuzha: The husband-wife duo involved in the case of robbing a woman after knocking her down from her two-wheeler at Muttom, near Kayamkulam was arrested on Tuesday. The arrested were identified as Prajith (37) and his wife Raji.
The incident took place on May 25. The woman, working in a private company, travelling alone on her scooter, was knocked down at a deserted place in the dark at the Muttom NTPC road in Kayamkulam and had her ornaments stolen.
The couple, who was following the woman in another vehicle after noticing the ornaments on her neck and arms while she was doing some shopping in the town earlier, knocked her down while overtaking her.
Following this, Prajith and Raji, who was dressed as a man, came up to the woman on the pretext of helping her and tried to snatch the necklace. When the attempt failed as the woman was wearing a raincoat, the accused pushed the woman to the ground by tackling her legs and snatched her anklet.
When the woman got herself up and started running again, Prajith and Raji followed her, knocked her down again and took her bangles and ring by force. They also grabbed her mobile phone and threw it away to not let the woman call for help as they made their escape.
The police were informed after the woman reached home later at night. At first, the police had assumed that the assault was carried out by two youths. However, a detailed probe revealed that the second person was a woman dressed as a man, who had changed her clothes after travelling some distance before getting away with the stolen jewellery.
While the police had managed to find a few broken parts of the ornaments on the spot, gathering further details was made difficult due to continuous rains and the fact that there was no power in the locality during the time of the incident.
Prajith and Raji had laid low for a few days after the incident and followed the case on the media. When the initial noise died down, they sold the ornaments at a private place and went on a tour of different places in Tamil Nadu. They decided to return a few days fully assured they would no longer be caught.
However, the Kayamkulam Police were involved in the gathering of evidence and doing follow-ups in a time-bound manner for the last nine days. The sold ornaments have been retrieved from the place of sale. The vehicle used by the couple has also been recovered. The first-accused Prajith is also accused in several other cases including an NDPS case.
The probe was led by Kayamkulam Deputy Police Superintendent Ajaynath with Kariyilakulangara ISHO Suneesh, SI Bijith Lal, ASI Pradeep and CPOs Suhail, Shameer, Shafi, Divya, Iyaz, Deepak, Shajahan, Manikuttan and Akhil Murali as members.