Jisha rape and murder: How Kerala Police nabbed the accused

The Kerala Police has finally managed to nab the suspect in the Jisha murder case that grabbed national attention for the sheer brutality and the parallels drawn to the Nirbhaya case.

The gruesome murder that was committed on April 28 got attention only after five days later when the media took it up. As the Assembly election campaign was in full swing, the opposition too jumped in as it was a fresh issue to target the government. While the LDF had promised that they would crack the case within 48 hours of taking charge, that didn’t happen.

Pinarayi Vijayan, who assumed office on May 25 promptly appointed ADGP B Sandhya to probe the case and she began her investigation with a rejigged team on May 27.

Also read: Why we cannot separate Jisha's rape from her Dalit identity

Though the team under Sandhya mostly pursued the leads collected by the previous team, the manner in which the leakage of information was controlled and the way they handled the case deserves special mention. At no point did they get desperate and they followed scientific methods of enquiry aided by the use of technology and forensic science.

Amirul Ul-Islam, 23, the suspect under custody, a native of Assam, had moved to Kerala just six months back looking for work in the construction sector. The suspect has confessed to his crime and the five DNA samples recovered from Jisha’s garments and fingernails and the blood sample on the door hook matched Amirul’s.

The suspect had reportedly gone to Jisha’s house in the morning the same day and was shooed away. He went back later in the evening after getting drunk. After committing the crime, he washed himself in the canal nearby and threw away his muddy footwear which went on to become crucial evidence as Jisha’s blood was recovered from it.

The police also managed to locate the footwear store and the shopkeeper has identified it. The knife used for the crime was also recovered on June 17 just a kilometre from Jisha’s house.

After committing the horrific crime, Amirul escaped to Assam on a train the next day. After spending a week there, he went to Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu where he had some friends and landed a temporary job.

Also read: Why rape victims are killed

While he had already destroyed his sim card, he began using his mobile phone with a new one just a fortnight back that helped the police zero in on his location. The police was assisted by a close friend of the suspect as they tracked him for a couple of days before nabbing him.

Finally, 48 days after the brutal murder, the Kerala Police team picked up Amirul near the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. The police did not publicise the arrest till they carried out the tests and made sure that the suspect in their custody was actually the culprit.

The interrogation was carried out in Thrissur and he was brought to Aluva after the arrest was registered and released to the media. Amirul was produced before the magistrate where he was asked if the police used third degree on him - he replied in the negative. He has been remanded to 14 days in custody.

While the police team has to be complimented for their humongous efforts in checking more than 27 lakh phone numbers and for carrying out the DNA tests of a long list of suspects, it took them so long to nab the culprit owing to the blunders committed by lower level officials initially.

While the murder took place on April 28, there was an effort to hush up the details of the crime, and it was only by May 3 the media brought the matter to centre stage. The circle inspector and the sub-inspector did not seem to follow all the standard procedures and the body was cremated in haste soon after the post mortem.

Instead of sending Jisha’s clothes for forensic tests forthwith, it was done much later. The scene of the crime wasn’t secured till 11 days after the crime. It caused a lot of people to trample with potential evidence and posed a huge challenge to the forensic team.

Crucially, the motive behind the crime hasn’t yet been established. A story doing the rounds of the media involving an incident at a waterbody the day before the murder has been found to be untrue with women in the area flatly denying it. There is a sense that critical information is yet to tumble out even as the police is yet to conduct a press conference.

What is clear though is that Jisha and Amirul were known to each other and he had accompanied Jisha to a local studio to get photographed in March. If the police deem fit to not divulge anything further till the identification parade and collating of evidence, it will only stoke further speculation.

As for the sociological impact, Malayalis' reluctance to do blue-collar jobs in their home state, though they are open to doing it in the "Gelf" for better packages, has led to a large-scale migration of labour into Kerala from states like West Bengal, Orissa, Assam et al. An estimated three million migrant labours have made Kerala their home in the last decade. A third of them live in Ernakulam district, with a majority of them based in Perumbavoor, a satellite town.

The absence of registers and proper documentation has become an issue as crimes involving migrant workers have gone up substantially.

There is also some concern regarding racism and xenophobia in the wake of the Jisha murder. But it’s a fact that the state is heavily dependent on these people, and, without them the 5,000-odd small-scale plywood, chemical and glass industries in Perumbavoor and Aluva would grind to a halt.

While the police’s concern would be to ensure the success of the prosecution and preventing leakages that would hamper the process, the speculations that might emerge in the absence of further revelations, especially on the motive part, would inflict further cruelty on Jisha posthumously, and also on her family who have gone through the worst.