A court in Malappuram district on Saturday sentenced three persons accused of abducting and murdering a traditional physician from Mysuru despite the failure of the investigating team to trace the body of the victim. The conviction and sentencing were based on meticulously gathered forensic and scientific evidence, according to EM Krishnan Namboodiri, the public prosecutor.  The whole episode brough to mind the modus operandi followed by Sherlock Holms, the super sleuth created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Scotland born crime novelist.

The prime accused Shaibin Ashraf (37), a businessman was sentenced to 13 years and nine months rigorous imprisonment and a fine of  `2.45, while the second accused P Shihabuddeen (39) was slapped with imprisonment running to eight years and nine months and N Nishad (32), the sixth accused, was sentenced to five years and nine months of rigorous imprisonment. 

The second and sixth accused were ordered to pay `60,000 and  `45,000 respectively as fine.

The prosecution charge was that Shaba Sherif (60) of Mysuru, who cured people suffering from piles with a folk cure,  was abducted by Ashraf and others who wanted to extract the formula of the medicine from the former and held him captive for more than a year and tortured him for 14 months. Sherif was held captive in Ashraf’s house and when the latter failed in extricating the formula of the medicine, he along with his helpers murdered the physician , chopped his body into tiny pieces and threw the same in the nearby Chaliyar river. Though the police held a thorough investigation based on certain inputs provided by Ashraf’s henchmen, they could not make any breakthrough in the search.

But the cops found strands of hair from the car owned by Ashraf in which he and others had abducted Sherif. Though they could not trace the body, the hair was subjected to mitochondrial DNA analysis and this proved that the hairs belonged to Ashraf.

One of the associates had turned approver while three of Ashraf’s friends spilled the beans to the police and the investigators could nab the persons behind the gruesome murder. They also zeroed in on the saw procured from a nearby timber mill with which Ashraf and others had chopped Sherif’s body into pieces.

“This is what we call the hand of God which substantiates that there is no perfect crime,” said S Sujith Das former superintendent of police, Malappuram who monitored the probe. The mitochondrial DNA analysis turned out to be the beacon that led the cops to the accused, said Das.