A raw video, captured furtively on a mobile phone and widely circulated as instant messages, has emerged as smoking gun in a street-killing that shocked the capital early this year.
The murder of Sabeer, 23, on January 31 at Vakkom, a sleepy suburban neighbourhood in the district, might not have grabbed much public attention had it not been for the shaky images that captured the crude savagery of the crime.
A passerby had covertly recorded the crime on his mobile phone and shared the video with his friends the same day.
Within hours, the quivery images of seven youths methodically bludgeoning Sabeer to death was looped over and over again on television news and disseminated widely on social media. They evoked visceral feelings of revulsion and horror and prompted a huge public outcry.
They were troubled youths
Circle Inspector, Kadakkavoor, G.B. Mukesh, who investigated the case, said the victims and perpetrators of the crime were troubled youths from dysfunctional families. They were college dropouts who did odd jobs for a living. The commonality between the youth was that they were all deeply involved in the traditions of a neighbourhood temple that customarily accepted newly forged swords as offering. Once every two years, the youths, irrespective of their individual religion, would enthusiastically take part in the temple festival that involved hundreds marching with swords in medieval warlike formation.
Investigators said the legend and lore associated with the temple celebrated a martial tradition that leaned heavily on notions of masculinity and gang loyalty. The local youths were not impervious to such “chivalrous” beliefs.
The police charge-sheet details how temple ground altercations and adolescent rivalries fuelled a chain of tit-for-tat attacks that finally culminated in Sabeer’s murder. The crime had no communal undertones.
