A special investigation team (SIT) of the Kerala Police has arrested the accused, a young Assam native, in the sensational case pertaining to the brutal rape and murder of a 29-year-old Dalit woman, a law student, inside her house near Perumbavoor in Ernakulam district on April 28.
The accused, Ameerul Islam (23), son of Nizamuddin hailing from Dholda Village in Assam was taken into custody from Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu, a police release said. However, the police were yet to formally confirm details of how the crime was committed.
“His arrest has been recorded,” said Additional Director General of Police B Sandhya, who was heading the SIT, at Aluva near Kochi on Thursday evening. “The other procedures are on now. We also have to conduct the identification parade,” she said. The accused was brought to the Aluva Police Club, the operational base of the SIT, on Thursday evening.
The Assam native, a migrant construction worker, was held on the basis of information received from mobile-tracking, DNA analyses of samples taken from the victim’s body and crime spot and, mainly, the statements of a shop-owner in Perumbavoor who had sold the pair of footwear recovered from near the crime scene, sources said.
“The results (of the DNA analyses) are positive,” said ADGP Sandhya. The suspect confessed to committing the crime immediately after he was held and he had killed her out of enmity towards her for mocking him publicly, according to sources. Four friends of the Assamese native who might have had knowledge of the incident also are said to be in the custody of the police.
The body of the woman was found by her mother in a mutilated condition in their house on the night of April 28. It was found that the genital parts had been mutilated using some weapon and her internal organs had come out. The autopsy report revealed that there were 38 wounds on the body. The Assam native, said to be a former friend of the victim, was staying near her house.
According to reports, the accused, described as a sexual pervert, had earlier been publicly humiliated by a group of women who were taking a bath in the canal near the victim’s house. Seeing the women’s united attack against him, who had spied on the bathing women, the victim had laughed loudly to mock him and this infuriated the Assamese youth.
On the morning of April 28, Islam reportedly reached the woman’s house and made some extremely provocative sexual gestures at her which forced her to threaten to slap him with her chappals. He left the place and came back in the evening fully drunk and armed with a knife and killed her in cold blood by stabbing, biting and strangulating.
He strangled the woman with a shawl and stabbed her in the neck. As per reports, when she cried for water he gave her liquor and when she bit him he bit back. One report said that he also tried to rape her but he mutilated her genital parts using the knife when he failed in the attempt but the police release described the accused as one “who had brutally raped and murdered” the woman.
After committing the crime, Islam left the place through the canal near the house abandoning his black chappals as it hampered his movement through mud. It was this pair of footwear which became the prime evidence that led the police to him. Also, the hair and saliva samples collected from the woman’s body helped the police in identifying the culprit through DNA analyses.
The accused destroyed his mobile SIM and left for Assam immediately after incident. After living there for some weeks, he called his friends in Perumbavoor to know about the probe, which alerted the police who were waiting for his IMEI to mobile come up. After he learned that the probe could extend to him, he left first for West Bengal and then for Tamil Nadu.
The arrest of the Assam native, though it came 50 days after the incident, helped the police in reclaiming much of the reputation they had lost in the initial stages during which they had allegedly messed up the investigation by not showing the required seriousness. The alleged apathy of the police had led to intense protests across the State.