THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a horrific incident, a man was murdered by a group of men at Pothencode on Saturday.
The assailants chopped off the victim’s leg, causing him to bleed to death. The cruelty of the assailants did not end there. They took the severed foot of the victim and hurled it on the road while fleeing. These scenes were captured by the surveillance cameras installed in the locality.
Sudheesh, 32, son of Sathyan and Leela, of Pananvila House at Kalloor near Pothencode and currently residing at Chempakamangalam is the murder victim. He is survived by wife and two kids. Police have identified two of the assailants as notorious criminals Ottakam Rajesh and Azhoor Unni, who have several criminal cases in their names, especially at Chirayinkeezhu police station. Sudheesh revealed their names to the police before losing consciousness while being taken to the hospital.
According to the police, the crime took place around 2.30 pm. The gang cornered the victim at a palm field near Kalloor. Fearing for his life, he ran to his relative Sajeev’s residence nearby. But the assailants who followed him there hacked him using sharp weapons.
They targeted the legs below the knees. His right feet got severed completely from the middle of the shin. While fleeing from the crime scene, the assailants grabbed the severed foot and threw it in the middle of the road around half a kilometer away from the crime scene.
In the surveillance camera visuals released by the police, the assailants can be seen raising their hands in exultation after hurling the foot on the road.
Police collected this foot while taking the injured to the hospital. But by 5 pm, the doctors at Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College hospital pronounced him dead while under treatment.
Apparently, Sudheesh was hiding from the police after committing a crime of attempted murder. He was allegedly part of a gang that attacked and injured two youths at Attingal on December 6.
The Attingal police had arrested four persons, including Sudheesh’s elder brother Satheesh alias Bike Sathi, for attempted murder charges then. Sudheesh had been evading arrest since then.
It is suspected that Sudheesh was hiding at his relatives’ residences in Kalloor region.
The injured youths in that case are learned to be close accomplices of Ottakam Rajesh and Azhoor Unni. Unfortunately for Sudheesh, the rival gang traced him before the police could, which eventually led to his death. The assailants came on two motorcycles and an auto rickshaw.
Rural SP V K Madhu said that while the antecedence of the deceased is being probed, the priority of the police was to nab the assailants.
There has been a spate of violent crimes reported recently under rural police, especially from the regions under Pothencode, Kadinamkulam, Mangalapuram and Attingal police station limits. It was only a few days ago two known criminals hacked several people at Kadinamkulam during an extortion bid. Before that, a habitual offender had publicly thrashed a young man on the road at Kaniyapuram.
