A missing person case is reopened years later in Kerala. What emerges is a death, a cover-up, and a ritual driven by guilt

According to police, the four were addicted to brown sugar, which they would consume at a deserted area near Sarovaram biopark in Kozhikode. On. March 24, Vijil overdosed, which led to the other three panicking and deciding to get rid of the body. The accused took his bike and mobile and abandoned them at a railway station parking area, police said. Forty-eight hours later, they came back and lowered the body into a wetland before placing a stone on it.

DIG and Kozhikode city police commissioner T Narayanan said, “We recently decided to reopen all pending missing cases. Special teams were formed for each case, and they were told to start fresh probes. Documents, evidence collected so far and statements were closely scrutinised. In this case, the team was asked to probe the case from a murder angle instead of treating it as a usual missing person case.”

Days after Vijil went missing, his father Vijayan had approached the Elathur police. The friends were tracked down, but they all gave a similar version – that Vijil had boarded a train and left for whereabouts unknown. In their locality, the friends spread a rumour that Vijil had a love affair, but since his elder brother was unmarried, he ran away with his partner.

On how police managed to get a breakthrough, inspector K R Ranjith, who led the special team, said, “In 2019, when the police probed the missing case, the friends had told investigators that they had dispersed after taking drugs around 3 pm that day. Nobody doubted this. While examining Vijil’s call records, we found that his phone had been switched off at 2 pm that day. The phone was switched back on for a short time the next day at another location within Kozhikode city before being switched off again. This made us assume that Vijil was either alive or someone had taken his mobile phone after his death or murder.”

The inspector said the youths gave starkly similar statements to the police, indicating they may have planned what to say. After a fresh probe began, their statements were recorded afresh, but this time, police picked up slight discrepancies and loopholes in their statements. When confronted with this, Nikhil, one of the arrested, confessed to the crime.

This time, police had also looked at the history of the three accused extensively. Their friends were tracked down, and police were able to ascertain that they were with the victim that day.

During the investigation, Vijil’s mother recalled to the police that he had gone out on his bike, promising to return soon. “There was no indication that Vijil wanted to leave his family. He did not take any clothes or a bag for a long journey. We realised that only his friends would be able to tell the truth,” said the inspector.

It was Nikhil who abandoned Vijil’s bike near the railway station in Kozhikode, along with his phone, police said. This was done to give credibility to their version that Vijil had left Kozhikode by train. While the bike has been recovered, the phone is missing.

The accused told the police they were haunted by the crime. Eight months after the incident, they went to the marshland, where Vijil was buried, and collected his bones for ‘asthi visarjan’ or ‘bali tharpanam’ – a ritual to honour the dead. Without anyone’s help, the bones were immersed near Varakkal beach in Kozhikode.

The inspector said they have sought the support of the Centre for Earth Science Studies to recover the victim’s remains using ground-penetrating radar.

According to police, Vijil was an electrician, Nikhil an accountant with a Bengaluru firm, Ranjith a small business owner, and Deepesh did odd jobs to make a living.