Police arrest prime accused in Kottayam twin murder case

The police team probing the brutal murder of 70-year-old businessman Vijayakumar and his wife Meera at Thiruvathukkal in Kottayam on Wednesday arrested the prime suspect from a chicken farm near Mala in Thrissur district.

The arrested person, Amit Urang, is a migrant labourer from Assam and a former employee of Vijayakumar. The police tracked down the prime suspect using the digital footprint left on the victim’s mobile phone.

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Amit was taken into custody by a team led by District Police Chief Shahul Hameed. According to officials, he fled the scene shortly after committing the murder, taking Vijayakumar’s mobile phone with him.

The police were able to trace Amit’s movements through his digital activity on the phone. “The suspect’s use of Google services and Gmail on Vijayakumar’s phone played a critical role in tracing his location,” said a police officer. “We were able to follow his digital trail and stay right behind him as he tried to vanish,” he added.

Vijayakumar, owner of the Indraprastham Auditorium in Thirunakkara, and his wife Meera were found murdered on Tuesday morning at their home in Thiruvathukkal in Kerala’s Kottayam district. Their bodies were discovered in separate rooms of the house, lying in a pool of blood and without clothes, according to police reports.

In September last year, the local police arrested and filed a case against Amit based on Vijayakumar’s complaint that he had stolen his mobile phone and carried out a few financial transactions using it. In that case, Amit remained in judicial remand from November to April, after which he was released on bail. During his time in jail, his girlfriend parted ways with him—a development investigators believe may have contributed to his motive for the killings.