Perumbavoor:
The bustling town of Perumbavoor stands around 40 kilometres from Kochi, and is best known for its plywood industry. Besides the agrarian income, its economy largely depends on the 1500 units that process the abundantly available rubber wood, employing more than 2 lakh people. When you turn into the Iringole Canal Road at the busy Vattolipaddy junction, you are greeted by a scenic silence: typical of Kerala’s rural monsoon landscape: the crowns of the tall dark trees lace the rain-lulled sky, the frolicking green undergrowth and the gentle swirl of the waters in the narrow irrigation canal that run alongside the road. However, it all seems speciously calm as if to mask the horror that occurred here over a month ago.
On either side, middle-class homes sit concreted in
their modest successes. Families have been rooted here for decades and some
even claim for centuries- as old as the Iravichira Siva temple itself. And the
peaceful neighbourhood has never reported a theft for eons so a murder is even
more alien to these parts. The police van stationed on the small bridge, is the
only reminder that one of the most diabolic crimes, the most gruesome sexual
assault carried out on any woman in Kerala, happened right here on the banks of
this canal. On April 28, 2016, Jishamol K V, 32, a law student from the dalit
community, was found murdered in her 3-room home. Irony seems to hysterically
stalk Jisha all her life and so it did in death too. In this plywood town with
its abundance of wood, Jisha’s unplastered dour house is fitted with two flimsy
doors, and the front room has a single grilled rectangular opening in the wall
without wooden window panes. This crude opening looks onto the canal and the
road beyond. This toilet-less, asbestos-roofed house that squats on the narrow
edge of excess government land, hardly afforded privacy let alone security to
the mother and daughter who lived alone. Jisha and her mother, like most women
living alone in Kerala, slept with a sickle under their pillow. With the mother,
Rajeswari, 51, irregularly employed as a home nurse, and Jisha unable to clear
her law papers their life was a constant struggle.
When night falls on Iringole canal road, darkness
descends like an impenetrable blanket. The street light in front of Jisha’s
neighbour Gee Varghese’s home is a dull yellow that does little for visibility.
Varghese, who runs a grocery shop at Vattolipaddy junction, usually gets home
around 8.30 at night. It was a dark sultry night well past 8.40 when Gee
Varghese and his family heard a woman wailing at the gate. When Gee Varghese
stepped outside Rajeswari cried to him that her daughter was not opening the
door and he must come and take a look. GeeVarghese, accompanied by his son,
shone a torch on the door but since it was bolted from inside he was reluctant
to go further. Like everyone else in the neighbourhood Varghese too is wary of
Rajeswari. Rajeshwari had given numerous complaints about people in the
neighbourhood to the police that they were bothering her. She was paranoid
about anyone who passed that way neighbours said. She also had the habit of
spitting with a loud “thoo” (an insult in Kerala) when someone she disliked
passed by. So people avoided her and dared not go near her home. So Varghese
called the Kuruppampady police station which is close by. Within five minutes
the police arrived and slowly a few more people gathered on the road on hearing
Rajeswari’s cries. The two policemen went around the house and found the back
door ajar. When the police entered, they found in the windowless middle room
Jisha’s body sprawled half- naked in a pool of blood with her kameez riding up.
Loops of intestine lay uncoiled in the pool of blood. The doubled up dupatta
was wound around her neck. The post mortem report, according to sources, say
that Jisha’s body was pockmarked with 38 minor and major injuries. Her nose was
torn away and her face and neck were violently pierced and her breasts were
jabbed 13 times. There were two bite marks on her back, her vagina was pierced
twice with a sharp instrument. It had the signature of rage killing. The murder
shocked Kerala because the horrifying murder was carried out casually and
boldly during daytime. And to add to that there seemed to be no motive to kill
Jisha in such a gruesome manner.
49 days after the murder, and two successive special
investigation teams probing it, the Kerala police finally zeroed in on the
murder-suspect Ameer-ul Islam, 23, a migrant labourer, from Dholda village,
Nagaon district in Assam and arrested him from Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu where he
had re-located to work. (Kerala has a migrant labour population of over 35
lakhs of which nearly 4 lakhs are concentrated in Perumbavoor.) The police say
his DNA profile matches the DNA of the blood and saliva samples found on Jisha’s
clothes, under her nails and on the door. The accused, Ameer-ul, according to
police sources, stayed one and half kilometres from Jisha’s house and had been
employed as a helper for the past three years in the construction sector in
Kerala. He lived with other labourers in a crowded rented room and had been
living with them for a year. He is married to two women who are both living
separately now. There is no information that he knew Jisha prior to the day he allegedly
killed her. What is unfolding as the police interrogate him, according to
sources, is that the suspect Ameer-ul, had gone to the government run beverage
outlet which is 500 metres from Jisha’s house at 8 am that day. He had to pass
Jisha’s house to the beverage shop and he probably knew that Jisha was alone
there that day. Ameer-ul did not go for work on April 28 but hit the bottle
instead. He made another trip in the afternoon and it was while returning with
a bottle in hand on his third trip, that Ameer-ul, in an intoxicated state (and
perhaps under the influence of drugs) saw Jisha sitting outside on the front
doorstep of the house at around 5.30 pm. He went straight towards her and
grabbed her. The house though on the roadside is lined with crotons shrubs so
the doorstep is not easily visible from the road. She slapped him with her
slipper. He pushed her hard and she stumbled into the house and he followed her
and kicked the door shut with a loud bang and dragged her into the windowless
interior of the middle room. He smothered her, bit her on the back, and
inflicted a small wound with his knife he brought along. Then he strangulated
her with a dupatta. When she pleaded for water he poured alcohol from his
bottle down her throat. Her jugular vein was pierced with a knife and even as she
lay dying, he removed her lower garments and attempted to rape her but failed due
to a pre-mature ejaculation. So in a fit of anger he stabbed her repeatedly on
her face, her chest and plunged the knife into her private parts pulling out
her intestines in the process.
The Wire spoke to both people in authority and the
locals to piece together the lonely life of Jisha who tried to live her life
with as much dignity as she could manage. Death however cruelly robbed her of
that dignity. According to Rajeswari, Jisha always lit the lamp in the evenings
and sat on the doorstep in the fading light. The house had a narrow mud path
lined with crotons that led to the doorstep. And the small space around the
house was crowded with jacktrees, coccum trees, coconut trees, jasmine and
hibiscus shrubs that had been painstakingly planted by the two. “We always did
everything together. At nights we hugged each other and slept.” Cries
Rajeswari. “I was late that night. We had got money from the SC department to
buy a plot of land and we were building a house on that land. But we had run
out of money so I had gone to the party office to ask for some money to
complete the house. I also went to meet other people seeking help. When I got
back it was 8.30 at night and when I saw there was no light and my daughter was
not opening the door I became very, very afraid.” For Jisha, her mother was
everything says her former classmate say Rita Balachandran, 65, who retired as
a banker and was a student at the Ernakulam Law College between 2010 to 2013.
Perhaps Rita is the only one who knew Jisha personally. Says Rita “Jisha was an
exceptionally quiet and reserved girl. Though she never revealed her problems
she was an exceedingly sad girl. She would sit apart from the others during
lunch time and eat alone while all the others sat in groups and shared their
lunch boxes. Now, looking back maybe she did not have anything to share so she
sat aloof to salvage her dignity. I knew her from the first day in college for
she walked nearly six kilometres to college from the hostel during the initial
days to save on money. For her, her mother was everything in her life and she
had often said she will commit suicide if her mother dies. In a short while,
she quit the hostel and went back home because her mother was alone. She had
told me that the backdoor was dilapidated and sometimes cows would walk in and
sit inside the house at night so her mother needed her there to chase the cows
away. I offered to buy wooden doors from one of the many plywood companies in
Perumabvoor so that they could be more secure. She had initially agreed to it
and then she called me and politely declined. Her mother was against it.” Rita
explained that the mother and daughter greatly feared if they accepted anything
from others then they would be exploited. “I know that she did not have enough
money to buy books and she probably had arrears from the first semester. Jisha
was a woman of gentle character who wanted to do something with her life. There
was no one to motivate her, and she could not understand much of what happened
in class and yet she was a self-motivated person.”
It was only after her death that the neighbours knew
that Jisha was a law student. The two had stopped taking any help from their
neighbours and stopped talking to them. Even to collect drinking water they
would go to a house far away for Rajeswari had fought with every neighbour
around the house. When she did not have work, Rajeswari, to make ends meet
would, would go and meet people in far off places and ask for help with which
they would survive for a few days. Neighbours say that when Jisha’s father K V Pappu
was around, the family was more friendly with the neighbours but when their
relationship soured Pappu moved out. And all relationship with the neighbours
were cut off when Jisha’s older sister, Deepa, at the age of sixteen eloped
with a man from her dance school and since then the mother grew possessively protective
of her younger daughter. Though there was another colony with poor setllers
close by, Rajeswari and Pappu preferred to stay away from them. And as
Rajeswari relentlessly abused her neighbours, the two women found themselves
totally alienated from their neighbours. So even after Jisha’s deathe, the
neighbours were hesitant to talk about her or co-operate with the police. Though
a neighbour in the opposite house had seen a man in a yellow shirt coming out
of the house, she never reported it to the police for another four days. (Today
she is the key witness in identifying the suspect.)
At 5.45 pm, Jisha’s closest neighbour heard a very
unusual loud noise from the house, so the husband and wife stepped out to look
but did not hear anything further. In the windowless middle room, Jisha was
being killed. The neighbours thinking it was the mother and daughter fighting
did not dare go into the house or call out to Jisha. It was only later at night
they understood what had happened. The neighbours and the village Panchayat
president Saumini Babu confirm that senior police officials had arrived at the
scene and there was a police van stationed there all night and have been there
ever since. On April 29, the police
under the supervision of the Circle Inspector, Forensic Team conducted the
inquest. The dog squad too had arrived and checked the area. The Panchayat
president Saumini Babu said, “Five people from the panchayat were witnesses to
the inquest. We were told the district magistrate would arrive but he never did,
so the police carried out the inquest. The family did not have the money to
send the body by ambulance for the post mortem so we panchayat members pooled
in the money and gave it to them.” After the post-mortem in the government Medical
College at Alappuzha which is more than two hours from Perumbavoor, the body
was brought back to Perumbavoor and cremated that very night itself.
When Jisha’s four classmates arrived for the funeral
on April 30, they found that the body was already cremated and that the outside
world had not heard about the brutal murder. Though the newspapers had reported
it, it was relegated to the inner pages. Jisha’s classmates Anu V Kuttan and
Soumiya Dharmaraj were disturbed that no one was concerned about the murder.
The police were indifferent and media had failed to give it the gravity it
required. So Soumiya shared it on social media where it became a point of
discussion and finally a week after Jisha’s death the mainstream media began
reporting it in detail on their front pages.
George Pulikuthiyil, director of Jananeethi, who has
been gathering material on the murder, points out that there were number of
lapses on the part of the police. The attitude was very casual and it could be
because she was a poor dalit girl who had neither the money nor anyone to speak
up for her. “After checking the scene and stationing one police van there, all
the senior police officers left the scene. They came back only next morning for
the inquest. They did not act quickly to get the criminal. If they had
immediately alerted all bus stops and railway stations then they would have
nabbed the suspect earlier. (Ameer-ul went to the Aluva railway station that
very night and caught the train to Assam only next morning.) And if a dalit
person is murdered then it is mandatory that an official of magistrate rank be
present during the inquest. This was not done. A videography of the post-mortem
was also not taken which would have made things much easier for the police
now.”
The lack of motive had confounded the police. And
the Jisha murder case that came right in the midst of Kerala’s assembly
election campaigning became politically entangled and the Left parties used the
safety of women as an issue to beat the then Congress led UDF government ruling
the state. The Left parties promised to nab the murderer within 48 hours if
they came to power. The Kerala police though had followed the rulebook of
dealing with the murder case, came under severe criticism for not doing enough to
keep the crime scene intact. They had not cordoned off the scene was the
biggest criticism. They were accused of letting evidence be tampered with and
allowing the body to be cremated the very same day. Police in the old
investigating team refute this saying that though it was not physically
cordoned off there were policemen stationed there to keep people out and
moreover nobody in the locality wanted to go into the house. According to the
police after the post mortem, the body was handed over to the relatives. They
did not have a place to bury the body so the relatives took a decision and cremated the
body.
Neighbours, politicians, migrant labourers, family
and even the police came under the scanner. And women- security in Kerala
became a burning election issue the Left parties used well but their own
sitting MLA Saju Paul lost the election in Perumbavoor for not heading to the
pleas of Jisha’s mother Rajeswari. Jisha and her mother Rajeswari, had given
numerous complaints to the Kuruppampady police station, Aluva police station,
to Saju Paul and the party offices. But with Rajeswari giving complaints for
the flimsiest reasons the Police did not
take her seriously.
Under the Pinarayi Vijayan’s dispensation, the old
investigating team was replaced by a new team with more than 80 police
personnel headed by ADGP B Sandhya. More than 1500 people were questioned, 5000
people had their fingerprints taken. Over 27 lakh phone calls made on that day
were scanned through till the search narrowed to the phones that were switched
off from April 28. Amir-ul Islam’s phone was switched off and it was only a
four days ago he switched it on with a different SIM in Kanchipuram. The police
tracked him using the IMEI (International mobile equipment identity) number and
nabbed him in Kanchipuram. Even as the Chief ministerVijayan and other
ministers are patting themselves on the back and congratulating their team
under their ministry for nabbing the culprit, the government is also politically
dividing the police force saying that the investigation team under the previous
government had no will to catch the murderer. The police officers who initially
did a lot of ground work were transferred and their morale is at an all time
low.
With the suspect in judicial custody, this should
have been the end of the story but there are many including the father of the
victim, Pappu, who thinks that the suspect may not be the real criminal but the
Police under pressure is just parading someone. Pappu thinks the case should be
handed over to the CBI. It is evident that the Police were under tremendous
pressure for they were taking into custody anyone who had curly hair, had a gap
between the teeth as per their sketch. They questioned over 2000 people in the
past month and tortured over a dozen people to admit to the killing including a
few of the neighbours and youth in that particular ward. Says Pulikuthiyil, “We
were told that they were summoned to the police station, hung upside down from
the ceiling for hours and beaten with iron rods on their feet to get them to
speak.” These people had to pay for Police’s initial lethargy. Now who is answerable to that? That, of course may be just bump for a
government and the police on to bigger things like a “feather in the Police cap.”
Link:
http://thewire.in/44059/isolation-and-poverty-marked-the-life-of-murdered-dalit-law-student-in-kerala/
Comments