The Thrissur police on Thursday, August 25 exhumed the body of a woman named Densy, 2.5 years after her death. Her body had been buried at the St Joseph’s Crematorium in Thrissur district’s Irinjalakuda. The police decided to exhume the body after an allegation came to light that Densy had been murdered by a man named Shaibin Ashraf. She had been found dead along with her colleague in Abu Dhabi in March 2020.

The allegation was part of a larger case that had unravelled when three persons – Zakeer, Noushad and Salim – threatened self-immolation outside the Kerala Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram on April 29 this year. They claimed to have been working for Shaibin Ashraf, a rich businessman based out of Nilambur.

The three men had provided the police proof of Shaibin’s crimes, which included videographic evidence of the torture of Shaba Sharif, a traditional ‘healer’ who had gone missing from Mysuru in 2019. The healer had been kidnapped by Shaibin in order to get information about the ingredients used in an ottamooli (natural medicine) – a cure for haemorrhoids – that Shaba had knowledge of. Shaba was held in captivity for over a year and tortured. Then he was brutally murdered in Shaibin’s house and his body parts were subsequently disposed of. Shaba’s family had filed a missing person complaint in Mysuru in August 2019, following his disappearance.

Shaibin’s three associates also asserted his involvement in the murder of his former business partner, Harris, a native of Kunnamangalam, and Densy, who was his colleague. The two were found dead in an apartment in Abu Dhabi in March 2020. Densy had travelled to Abu Dhabi in December 2019 after she had secured a job there. Initially, Densy’s family was told that she died of a heart attack; later it was assumed to be a death by accident. With Shaibin’s associates alleging that she was strangled to death, her body was exhumed for post mortem.