After the Indian High Commission in Malaysia issued a notice and a photo in a newspaper of an unidentified Indian woman found dead there, there are doubts whether it could be Dr Omana Edadan. The 63-year-old is an accused in one of the most sensational murder cases in Kerala.
So why did this ophthalmologist from Kannur district find herself in the Interpol’s most wanted list?
On July 11, 1996, Omana allegedly poisoned her estranged lover P Muraleedharan, a contractor, at a railway retiring room in Ooty.
Later, she chopped his body into pieces and stuffed them in a suitcase before carrying it in a taxi to Kodaikanal.
An older article on her says, “With surgical precision, she went on to dismember him, cut up his bones into little convenient pieces at her home in Payannur, where she lived alone. At her macabre best, she carefully packed her unfortunate paramour’s flesh and bones separately in plastic packets. The internal organs, she cut into very small pieces and flushed down the toilet. The police calculate it took her a mere three hours to accomplish the ghastly operation.”
She then placed the packets in the boot of her car and drove to a hill on Ooty and tried to dump some packets in various parts of the ravine. It was when she hired a taxi to go to Kodaikanal, after a change in plan, that she got exposed.
She was arrested the next day after the taxi driver gave statements against her.
Her plan was to throw the body parts into a river but she couldn’t execute it as the driver had suspicions.
Dr Omana, who was a divorcee, had told police that her lover was already married and he was trying to get away from her, which was the reason she killed him.
Though she spent a few years in the Madras Central Jail, Omana secured bail in 2001. She later jumped jail, and was suspected to have fled the country. Though the Tamil Nadu police tried to track her down, Omana had effectively vanished.
Interpol and police had strong suspicions that she had escaped to Malaysia.
As per the newspaper advertisement, the body of the woman was found after she fell from a building, in Subang Jaya of Malaysia.
Deputy Supertindent of Police KV Venugopal told The News Minute that her relatives have said that the photo has similarities to Dr Omana. He also said her children have revealed that she had contacted them once from Malaysia.
The advertisement also said that the dead woman is a Keralite. However, police said that it can be confirmed only after scientific tests.