According to a media statement released by the Kerala police on Thursday, around 1500 people were questioned, 5000 people’s fingerprints examined, and 20 lakh phone calls tracked before they were able to zero in on the main suspect in the murder of Jisha, a 30-year old law student in Perumbavoor.
The investigation was not restricted to the state of Kerala alone but was spread across six states –Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Chattisgarh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam.
It was a slipper found in a canal near Jisha’s house that turned out to be the crucial clue in a case that had the police running around in circles for the past 50 days. The said slipper had traces of Jisha’s blood on it.
This along with some traces of saliva in a bite mark on Jisha’s back comprised the two key pieces of evidence that finally led to the case being resolved by the reconstituted investigation team. The team was led by ADGP B Sandhya, who was asked to take charge of the case by the recently sworn-in LDF government a day after it assumed office in May 2016.
The police had earlier retrieved DNA samples from both the slipper and the blood splattered on the walls of the house as well as from one of the bite marks on Jisha’s body.
The DNA test results revealed that all three samples belonged to a single person. Further investigations into the origins of the said slipper led the police to a nearby footwear store whose owner claimed to have sold the pair to a migrant labourer who bore an uncanny resemblance to the new sketch of the key suspect that was released by the police on June 3.
This proved to be the turning point in the case and the police doubled its efforts to trace his whereabouts. The suspect reportedly hailed from Assam and had simply disappeared from Perumbavoor on the night Jisha was murdered.
There were reports that the suspect had apparently made only two phone calls –both to friends- from his mobile and was keeping abreast of the day-to-day developments in the case from his home in Assam.
It is assumed that when the suspect realized that the police were not even remotely looking out for him that he decided to return to south India in search for a job. It was on his way down that he walked right into the dragnet that the police had laid out for him across the states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Assam.
He was finally nabbed from Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu on Monday with the police officially recording his arrest on Thursday. According to unconfirmed reports, the suspect has supposedly confessed to the crime, though he has been changing his statement quite often with regard to where he had disposed off the murder weapon in an attempt to mislead the police.