The discovery of the body of an unidentified man from the chimney of a plywood company at Pattimattom near Perumbavoor has set the police an unenviable task of tracing the identity of the person, with no conceivable leads before them.
The body, suspected to be that of a migrant and in a highly decomposed state, was found on May 23 when workers mounted the chimney to clean it prior to reopening the firm after the lockdown.
‘Unnatural death’
As soon as they opened the chimney, a hand protruded out of it, startling the workers who promptly informed the supervisor who in turn alerted the Kunnathunadu police.
Though it has all the trappings of a murder, the police are not prepared to jump at that conclusion and have accounted it as an “unnatural death” for the time being.
“The body was over a month old, which means it was placed there after the lockdown. According to the police surgeon who conducted the post-mortem, the person could be aged between 20 and 50 years,” said V.T. Shajan, Station House Officer, Kunnathunadu.
The body was cremated after collecting samples, which have been sent to the forensic lab in Thiruvananthapuram for DNA profiling.
S. Kaliraj Mahesh Kumar, DIG (Ernakulam Range), has constituted a special investigation team to probe the case.
Crime scene inspected
Mr. Kumar on Friday inspected the crime scene and held a meeting with the team on the progress of the investigation, which is being monitored by K. Karthik, District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural), and K. Bijumon, DySP, Perumbavoor.
For the time being, focus is on finding out whether the profile of the deceased matches that of any person reported as missing in the extended rural limits.
The company premises accommodated 85 migrant workers throughout the lockdown, and they have now been asked not to move out till the case is solved. “Though the company employed a solitary guard, he could hardly account for all the movements of workers and whether they had brought in anyone from outside at any point,” said sources associated with the probe. Only after tracing the identity of the victim can the police confirm it to be a murder or not and the motives behind it.
