The December rains had finally stopped and the sun had emerged from the shadows. It was a bright Saturday morning on December 18, 2021, when residents of Periya Obulapuram, a village in Gummidipoondi taluk of Tiruvallur district in north Tamil Nadu, woke up to the wailing sirens of police vehicles whizzing past on the potholed road.
Sandwiched between Chennai and Sri City, an integrated business city bordering Andhra Pradesh, the village had not seen such police activity in the recent past. The police vehicles halted on a vast tract of barren land near a stream. Surrounded by the huge compound wall of a steel manufacturing company on the southern side and agricultural fields on the northern and western side, the tract leads to Eechan Kadu Medu, a hamlet close to Periya Obulapuram, a short distance away from the national highways.
A corpse near a stream
Villagers who followed the police vehicles watched in horror as some persons accompanying the police team fished out the body of a young man from near the stream. The local Tahsildar, called by the police as part of the procedural mandate during such exercises, jotted down the details of the operation.
Some 76 km away, two girls aged 15 and another aged 17, were going about their daily routine in their homes in Mannivakkam in Chengalpattu district adjoining Chennai, oblivious to the fact that the police would land at their doorsteps in 24 hours or so.
The police had arrived on the scene of crime after receiving a call about the likely presence of a corpse. Earlier that morning, S. Karthik, 30, a local resident, had headed to the barren tract. On the way, he had spotted a trail of dried-up blood from a small corrugated shed, which had been erected so that the last rites of deceased persons could be carried out close to the stream. He pointed this out to a few villagers who were with him. Backs hunched and eyes squinting, they found a human tooth on the ground along with a bit of hair. That’s when they alerted the police.
The villagers surmised the murder must have taken place the previous evening. “Normally nobody from the village goes to this spot at night. As you can see, the place is surrounded by agricultural fields on two sides,” said T. Elumalai, a resident of the village.
The villagers were unable to identify the body. The personnel from the Arambakkam Police Station proceeded on the assumption that the deceased was an outsider. But they could not find any clues to establish his identity. They registered a case under Section 174 (I) of the Criminal Procedure Code, dealing with “suspicious death”.
“The body bore tell-tale evidence of injuries. There were cut injuries on the face, head, ears and mouth – he was attacked, possibly, with a sharp knife. The body had not decomposed yet. That made it easy for us to surmise that the crime had taken place the previous night or early that morning. But we were clueless about the identity of the victim,” said S. Raju, Sub-Inspector, who registered the First Information Report (FIR) in the case.
Some spot investigation led the police to a plastic sheet on the floor of the corrugated shed with evidence of washed blood stains. They presumed that the victim’s body had been placed on the sheet before it was taken near the stream and buried hurriedly.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Gummidipoondi, S. Rithu said, “On examining the body, we found a tattoo on the chest that read ‘Selvi’ in English. Although Selvi is a common Tamil name, we were unable to conclude if the victim was from south India or up north. The likelihood of a north Indian having fallen in love with a ‘Selvi’ could not be ruled out.”
Soon two police teams were formed — one under the supervision of the Tiruvallur Superintendent of Police, R.V. Varunkumar, and another under Rithu. “We took the photo of the tattoo and the wristwatch worn by the victim,” said the DSP.
The police then shared the photos on their WhatsApp groups. The groups had been formed so that information on the movement of persons with criminal records in the neighbouring districts of Chengalpattu, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram could be exchanged.
Friendship and harassment
The simple strategy paid off. The photos got the sleuths at the Otteri Police Station in Chengalpattu, about 75 km south of the crime scene, working. The tattoo told a story. Only the previous night, the parents of R. Prem Kumar, a 19-year-old student of a college in Chennai, had approached the Otteri police saying their son had not returned home in Mannivakkam and feared trouble. Prem’s parents were worried for a reason. Praveen, a friend of the second-year college student, had told them that he and Prem had gone on a bike to Red Hills, a neighbourhood in north Chennai. There, some youths had chased him away and taken Prem hostage. The parents were shaken when they were shown the WhatsApp photos: the murdered man with the tattoo was Prem. Selvi, the name etched on his arm, is his mother.
A breakthrough had been achieved and the police now just had to piece the puzzle together. The first step was to get Prem’s mobile phone number from his parents. On getting the call detail record scrutinised, the police found that Prem had frequently made/received calls from three numbers. Of the three, two were sisters, who were traced to Mannivakkam.
The parents of the sisters — the father is a driver and the mother a casual employee in the Postal Department — and the daily-wage earning parents of the other schoolgirl were shocked when the police called the girls for an inquiry. As is the case in most crimes, the girls feigned ignorance. But when they were confronted with the phone call records, the story started tumbling out.
One of the schoolgirls had come in contact with Prem 18 months ago through a common friend. They exchanged phone numbers. She later introduced the other girl to him. An investigator said Prem and the two girls began having intimate conversations over phone. He recorded the conversations and allegedly started blackmailing the girls. He threatened to make the conversations public if they didn’t pay him money. Prem also warned that he would post some of the photos and videos he had taken with them online if they didn’t do as told.
Prem Kumar. Photo: Special Arrangement
The girls told the police that they stole money from their house and also borrowed money from friends to buy Prem’s silence. This continued for a year. When Prem allegedly continued to harass them for more money, one of the girls told her elder sister about it.
“The sister, a college girl, approached Ashok alias Ashok Kumar. She got randomly acquainted with him on Instagram. She asked him for help. That’s when things turned ugly,” said Rithu. Ashok, 21, was unemployed. He hailed from Nagaraja Kandigai, a village near Gummidipoondi. He had ‘liked’ a photo posted by the girl on Instagram and chatted with her over a period of time. They then exchanged phone numbers.
The girl met Ashok and sought his help to intimidate Prem so that he would stop harassing her sister and her sister’s friend. The schoolgirls too spoke to him.
Ashok devised a plan and roped in a gang of friends — M. Levin alias Poochi, M. Tamil alias Praveen Kumar and R. Stephen (all aged 21); E. Jeganathan, 22; and R. Moses, 29. They all lived in and around Gummidipoondi.
The murder
As per plan, the 15-year-olds had on the fateful day left home in school uniforms and headed to a friend’s place where they changed clothes. Thereafter, they hopped on to a suburban train and got down at Chrompet railway station where the college-going sister introduced them to Ashok. The two girls mounted the bikes on which Ashok and his friend Tamil had come. They raced north towards Red Hills, about 45 km from Chrompet, and stopped at a highway dhaba. One of the girls called Prem, who demanded ₹8,000. The girls said they had managed to get ₹3,000. They decided to meet at Red Hills.
The girls had sought Ashok’s help to destroy Prem’s mobile phone, which contained the audio conversations and some photos and videos, and to threaten him not to harass them in the future. It was evening. The college-going girl was at home telling her parents, who had no clue about any of this, not to worry about the absence of her sister and assuring them that she would be back soon. She also called Ashok repeatedly asking him to send the girls home.
As darkness fell, Prem, accompanied by his friend Praveen, reached the Sholavaram toll plaza, where the girls had said they would meet him. The two were cornered by the gang and Prem was physically attacked. Praveen fled the spot. Since a local villager had spotted the boys, the three of them left the scene.
Ashok sent the two girls away, assuring them that issue would be settled. He took Prem on a bike, with two other members of the gang joining on their motorcycles. The three took Prem to the barren land behind the factory. The accused, who, according to the police, had consumed alcohol and ganja at the spot, then picked up a quarrel with Prem. Instead of seizing and destroying his mobile phone and warning him, they ended up hacking him to death shortly past midnight.
Based on the inputs provided by the girls, the police arrested Ashok and his accomplices, who allegedly confessed to committing the murder. All of them are now in prison in judicial custody.
The three girls were produced before the District Juvenile Justice Board, Tiruvallur, and released in the custody of their parents the same day. As per Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Rules, an FIR should not be registered against juveniles except where a heinous offence is alleged to have been committed by a child or when such an offence is alleged to have been committed jointly with adults.
“In this case, we informed the girls through their parents about the charges levelled against them. We provided the assistance required per rules and produced them before the Juvenile Justice Board explaining the reason for apprehending them. The Board examined all the circumstances that resulted in the crime and released them saying apprehending them was not warranted in this case,” said a police officer, who is monitoring the case. Considering their age, welfare and future, the Board released them.
“The girls are now in the custody of their parents, which is in their best interest. They were given psychological counselling,” the officer added. Eventually during the trial in the murder case, their deposition would be necessary.
The father of the two sisters who are in conflict with the law is yet to come to terms with the developments. An investigator recalled the man’s disbelief when the police had summoned the girls for inquiry in the case. “My children asked me for ‘touch phones’ (local parlance for smartphones) to attend online classes saying their classmates and the children of neighbours all had such phones. I don’t even know what features the phone had. My wife and I never monitored their usage of phones. In any case we never knew to operate it,” he had told the police. “As parents, we always hope and trust our children that they will not do anything wrong. I have no idea what transpired between my girls and the boys who committed the murder. Had we known this, would we have allowed this to happen,” the distraught father had asked the investigators.
However, he was firm that his daughters would not have wanted their alleged harasser killed. Police said the father insisted that the girls were traumatised and had only sought help [as narrated by them to him] from “that boy” [Ashok] to destroy Prem’s mobile phone and nothing else. “They promised the girls Prem won’t be harmed but ended up killing him...Our daughters have no link with the murder,” he told the police.
Taking the legal route
Superintendent of Police, Tiruvallur, R.V. Varun Kumar said Prem had a habit of befriending girls through social media and had harassed a few others in a similar manner.
“The girls had called Ashok to find out if he got the phone. He told them that Prem had died while being beaten. Ashok could have informed the police about the harassment instead of taking matters into his own hands. He was perhaps trying to play hero to the girls,” Varun Kumar added.
“The girls could have at least informed their parents or approached the police. When asked why they didn’t take the legal route, they don’t have an answer. Ashok kept assuring them that he would handle it,” said Rithu. All of Ashok’s accomplices were working as semi-skilled labourers in local factories.
“Since students are attending online classes, everyone has a smartphone these days. Parents must monitor their phone activity, without intruding into their privacy, so that students don’t fall into such traps,” said Varun Kumar. He added that people should not fear societal disapproval of their activities and stay away from the police. They should pursue the legal route instead of trying to settle scores on their own. Parents too must openly and freely communicate with their children to gain their trust. Very often, youngsters use social media to seek quick redress to their problems, he said.
Senior advocate Sudha Ramalingam pointed out to the worrying trend of young girls befriending men older to them to seek help on personal matters. “They appear to feel reassured by the instant empathy and remedy promised by the peer group. Parents or elders are not consulted. They must be encouraged to talk to parents,” she said.
