Thiruvananthapuram, October 12 (BPNS)
A day after the gory murders at Elanthoor in Pathanamthitta came to light, another chilling factor got revealed, that the accused persons had performed cannibalism. According to Kochi City Police Commissioner Nagaraju Chakilam, though the investigation team had received information of this kind, the evidence against the same is yet to be collected. At the same time, the police had produced the three accused persons – Rashid alias Shafi, Bhagaval Singh, and Laila – before a magistrate court in Ernakulam and they were remanded to judicial custody for 14 days.
It was on Tuesday that the dismembered bodies of two women were recovered from Thiruvalla. The two had fallen victim to human sacrifice for the economic prosperity of the second and third accused.
“The mastermind of these murders is Shafi. A man who had only studied till the sixth standard he designed the entire plot. He laid the net and the co-accused as well as the victims fell into it. His modus operandi is to exploit the vulnerability of others. In this case, it was financial,” said Nagaraju in a press conference.
Shedding light on the psyche of Shafi, Nagaraju said that he is a sexual pervert and a sadist who derives pleasure by inflicting injuries or even death.
“The criminal history of Shafi is a proven one. He is a habitual offender. At the age of 16 or 17, he ran away from home. He had traveled across the state and had done various jobs. He was the first one we picked concerning the man missing case. He was not all cooperative at first. Then we rounded up Bhagaval and his wife and based on the information they gave, we broke Safi’s defense,” said Nagaraju.
Earlier, the police had divulged that Shaji had created a fake Facebook id in the name of Sreedevi and established contact with Bhagaval. This contact started in 2019 and at some point, this turned to love between Bhagaval and Sreedevi. The former had no idea that Sreedevi was indeed Shafi.
“The profile pic of that id showed the image of flowers and had the tagline ‘if you have any financial difficulty contact me’. Bhagaval had some financial difficulties and he might have contacted. More details will come out once we could complete the Facebook analysis. But it might take some time as we had to check the messages from 2019,” said Nagaraju.
According to the commissioner, the police also had information that Bhagaval and Shafi had known each other earlier. Earlier it was reported that the two came into contact when talks about rituals to address financial difficulties were carried out between Bhagaval and Sreedevi.
The intuition of ACP and a blurred image
The press conference of the police commissioner also revealed that it was an intuition that happened to Deputy Commissioner of Police S Sasidharan that resulted in a full-fledged investigation and brought the gory murders to light.
“It was from a blurred CCTV camera visual that we started the investigation. The investigation was laborious. From Kadavanthra in Ernakulam to Thiruvalla in Pathanamthitta, we checked hundreds of CCTV visuals and verified scores of call details and tower locations.
Now the focus is on collecting maximum evidence,” said Sasidharan.
Other than the dismembered body parts of the women, which will undergo postmortem and DNA analysis, the police had also collected the weapons used to murder them and a book having details of black magic and human sacrifice, presumably given by Shafi to Bhagaval.
‘Cut into 56 pieces’
According to the remand report, it was Rosily Varghese of Ashokapuram, Aluva who first fell victim. She was taken to the couple’s house at Elanthoor under the pretext of acting in a movie.
“There her hands and legs were tied to the bed in a room. A piece of cloth was inserted into her mouth which was also taped with plaster. She was stabbed by Shafi and her throat was slashed. Later, her private parts were cut and preserved. Her body was cut into pieces, then collected in a bucket and was dumped to a pit, which was dug in advance.”
In the case of the second victim, Padmam, she argued with the accused persons upon reaching the house at Elanthoor. Then she got strangled by a plastic rope and fell unconscious. Here also, Shafi inflicted injuries to her private parts and her throat was slit. Padmam was cut into 56 pieces, the accused collected it in a bucket, and dumped it into another pit.
“In the case of Padmam her dismembered parts were collected from a single pit. But Rosily’s was collected from three separate pits. In the case of these two murders and the one at Puthankurishu, where Shafi raped and injured a 75-year-old woman, there is a commonality as the pattern of injuries is the same. We will investigate more on these aspects,” said Nagaraju.
