Police earn laurels for Shukkoor murder probe

The investigation into the highly sensational Shukkoor

murder case has brought laurels to the police here even as they have been drawing

much flak from the CPM leadership for the alleged use of ‘third-degree methods’

to prove crimes.

 The investigating team led by District

Police Chief Rahul R Nair took nearly six months to file the chargesheet in the

case, but the entire probe was carried out following scientific methods.

 Since the murder of Shukkoor was a

political crime carried out in retaliation to a previous act of violence, the police

had taken extra care to avoid criticisms from the rival parties involved in the

clashes.

The meticulously done investigation of the T P Chandrasekharan murder case came

as a model to the Kannur police.

 Muslim League worker Abdul Shukkoor was

murdered even as a series of political clashes between the CPM and the IUML was

taking place in the Taliparamba region.

 But the murder of the young man in

broad daylight in an open paddy field in the communist heartland caught statewide

attention.

 “The biggest challenge in the

investigation was that there was virtually no one to come up with any evidence concerning

the brutal killing that took place in the predominantly CPM village of Keezhara,”

said a police official.

 As the investigation floundered in its

initial stage, the Muslim League leadership raised a hue and cry over the whole

issue and built up pressure on Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to take corrective

measures.

 The cops on duty at the Kannapuram station

at the time of the murder were shunted out of the station in the wake of

allegations against them.

 Eventually, as the police filed the

chargesheet in the case naming 33 CPM workers as accused in the Kannur Judicial

First Class Magistrate Court on Thursday, it marked yet another significant phase

in the history of crime investigation in the state.

 The police had sifted through nearly

five lakh mobile phone calls made by the suspects during the days before and

after the murder.

 The mobile towers at Pattuvam, Ariyil,

Taliparamba, Kannapuram and Kannur turned out to be towers of evidence.

 The Shukkoor case has another dubious

distinction: it is a case in which a district secretary of the CPM and a legislator

representing the party -- P Jayarajan and T V Rajesh -- are listed as accused.

 Not surprisingly, the volatile Kannur

politics turned further turbulent following the arrest of the known CPM

leaders, forcing the police to file criminal cases against more than 5,000

party workers.

 With the filing of the chargesheet, the

stage is set for the trial of the shocking murder at the District and Sessions

Court, Thalassery.