Thiruvananthapuram: Investigation into the murder of a realty businessman in Kerala, Vinod Kumar, has led the Kerala police on a trail that reads almost like a movie script.
Kumar, who had interests in real estate business and also ran a cooking gas agency, was found murdered at his residence in Valanchery, Malappuram with his wife Jyothi lying alongside with minor injuries. Both were in their early fifties.
Police found it unlikely a intruder had broken into the home and murdered Kumar for two reasons — the door of the house was not broken open and Jyothi who had only minor injuries had not alerted anyone else.
Their hunch appeared to be true on further investigation.
According to the police version, Jyothi, whose real name is Jesintha George and hails from Thodupuzha, was well-off, having worked as a nurse in Italy for many years. She met Kumar more than two decades ago and the two got married, though they had not made the marriage formal with a registration. It was in the run-up to the marriage that she changed her name to Jyothi.
However, in recent years, Kumar and Jyothi had fallen apart, apparently because Jyothi got to know of other relationships that Kumar had been keeping while she made occasional trips to Italy. It was one Mohammad Yusuf (51) who lived in one of the apartments that Jyothi owned, who informed Jyothi of Kumar’s relationships with other women.
Kumar got to know that Yousuf had informed Jyothi about his relationships and in revenge, attempted to unsettle a marriage proposal for Yusuf’s son.
According to police, Jyothi and Yusuf had been scheming to do away with Kumar for a few months, and carried out their plan on Thursday night. After Kumar was knifed to death, Yusuf inflicted minor injuries on Jyothi to give the impression that the couple had been attacked and Jyothi had managed to survive. Yusuf then left and discarded two mobile phones that he and Jyothi had been using specially for their scheming to murder Kumar.
Jyothi was admitted to hospital, but the elaborate murder plot unravelled when police questioned her. The investigation was done mainly on the trail of mobile calls between Jyothi and Yusuf. Yusuf has been arrested as the first accused, and Jyothi who is in hospital is expected to be taken into custody on discharge from hospital, as the second accused.
