A day after the shocking story of suspected human sacrifice in Kerala came out on Tuesday, October 11, the police remand report asking for the custody of the three accused revealed further horrifying details. The two victims, Padmam and Rosily, were murdered on two different days within three months reportedly for ritual sacrifice for an educated couple’s ‘prosperity’. Both women were lured by Muhammad Shafi (52), the first accused, to come to the house of the second and third accused Bhagaval Singh (68) and Laila (59), under false premises. Padmam was promised an amount of Rs 15,000 for doing sex work and Rosily was told she was to act in an adult film. Shafi had apparently convinced Bhagaval Singh, an Ayurveda practitioner with the public image of being a rationalist, that human sacrifice could bring him prosperity.
The women were subjected to excruciating torture before their death, and their bodies cut into many parts, the remand report said. One of the bodies was cut into 56 parts, and the other woman’s breasts were chopped off after her death, before the rest of the body was cut into pieces, the report said.
It was a missing complaint filed by Padmam’s sister Palaniamma that led the police to the house of the accused. Padmam had gone out to sell lottery tickets on September 26 from her rented room in Elamkulam in Ernakulam and did not come back. Palaniamma filed her complaint at the Kadavanthra police station the next day. The police found CCTV footage that showed Padmam getting into a white Scorpio on the morning of September 26 from Chittoor road in Ernakulam. Following up on that lead, the police got to Shafi, the prime accused, and uncovered the rest of the violent, superstitious, misogynistic plot.
Shafi told the police that Padmam was taken to the Singhs’s house in Elanthoor of Pathanamthitta district around 4 pm on September 26. After an argument over the promised money, the Singhs strangled her with a plastic cover till she lost consciousness. She was then subjected to brutal torture in one of the rooms before she was murdered by Shafi. All three accused then cut her body into pieces and buried the body parts in the premises of the house.
On further questioning, Shafi also told the police about Rosily, another woman who had been lured to the Singhs’s house and murdered in a similar manner. Rosily went missing in June from Kalady in Ernakulam district. She too was taken by Shafi to the Singhs’s house in Elanthoor on the pretext that an adult film will be shot with her. She was tied to a bed in the same room where Padmam was murdered, before she was tortured and killed by Laila. Bhagavel chopped off her breasts before the rest of her body was cut into pieces and buried.
All three accused were arrested on October 11. The police have, in the remand report, said that it is possible that the accused may have committed more such cruel acts, and asked for their remand custody for two weeks.
Ernakulam City Police Commissioner Nagaraju Chakilam, in a press meet on Wednesday, said that it was the CCTV footage that helped in the investigation. While Shafi was first questioned, he had not been forthcoming. It was after the Singhs were questioned that the details of the crime came out, and only then did Shafi admit to his role in the crime, the Commissioner said. Calling Shafi a ‘pervert and a psychopath’, the Commissioner listed out the previous crimes he has been involved in, including the rape and attempted murder of a 75-year-old woman, who had injuries very similar to Rosily and Padmam. The Singhs, however, had no crime records before this, the police said.