THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The investigation team probing the Perumbavur murder case has made a breakthrough by nabbing the killer of the dalit LLB student of Perumbavur on April 28. Though the officials are keeping the new development under wraps, the culprit is learnt to be a Bengali migrant worker, Hari Kumar, with gaps in between his front teeth (which is maligned/malpositioned).
Sources told DC that the government had instructed the police to announce the arrest of the culprit on Sunday, a day before the polls. The police got the vital clues about the bite marks on victim’s body from the dental implant pictures taken by Dr. Liza John, associate professor in forensic medicine who did the autopsy at the Alappuzha medical college.
Dr. Liza, 42, who also holds the rank of deputy police surgeon, told DC that when she saw the victim’s body on April 29 in the mortuary along with Dr. Amjith E. Kutty a senior PG forensic student, she knew that the case was going to be ‘different.’ “The procedure was jointly done by Dr. Amjith and me. I normally do three autopsies whenever I am put in charge. Since we don’t have a forensic photographer in the department, I took photographs on my mobile camera. I don’t take photographs of every case I attend. But when I saw the upper torso of victim’s body, I had an intuition that this was a serious case,” she said.
Dr. Liza showed this paper some 35 gruesome photos of victim. The bite mark on victim’s left shoulder caught the eyes of Dr Liza and Dr Amjith while doing the autopsy. They were not bothered about the blunt weapon which was used by the culprit but knew that it was the dental bite inflicted through her churidhar which was more crucial. It was later sent for DNA examination along with the culprit’s saliva at Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Thiruvananthapuram.
Sources said that the cause of the murder was personal enmity and not sex. Dr. B. Krishnan, assistant professor in forensic medicine and a colleague of Dr. Liza, told DC that if not for the bite marks on victim’s body, the police would not have been able to nab the victim. But he said that the local police who came to do the inquest should have taken the photos. Forensic expert Dr. B. Umadathan, who was approached by the police investigation team for expert advice, told DC that a forensic odontologist had gathered all the evidence and handed it over to the police investigation team led by Mr Mahipal Singh Yadav, Ernakulam Range IG.
“Now, we have got a suspect thanks to the pictures of the dental bites which have been corroborated by a forensic odontologist. The police have to collect other evidence like eyewitnesses, circumstantial evidence etc which rests on the investigation team and the crime has to be connected with the findings of the odontologist,” said Dr. Umadathan. Mr Mahipal Singh Yadav, refused to comment on the latest developments. “I can only say that the investigations are on,” he said. It may be recalled that there was a controversy over the post-mortem done at the Alappuzha medical college by a senior student. But now the forensic department of the college can take credit for the breakthrough achieved in the case.
