'Human sacrifices' case: Kin of more missing women approach Kerala police for reinvestigation

Families of more missing women have reportedly contacted police fearing that Mohammad Shafi alias Rasheed, the main accused in the alleged human sacrifices case, maybe behind their disappearances.

Once specifics of the heinous murders were uncovered on October 11, cops arrested 3 individuals: Bhagaval Singh (68), and his wife Laila (59), as well as the key suspect Mohammed Shafi (52). Later, Ernakulam District Sessions Court remanded the 3 suspects to judicial custody until October 26.

The kin of Bindhu Padmanabhan, who has been missing since 2013 from Alappuzha, reached out to the Kerala police crime section, alleging she was seen with someone who resembled Shafi days before her abduction, a report in Hindustan Times said.

In 2017, Bindhu’s brother Praveen Padmanabhan filed a fresh complaint alleging her property was seized using forged papers. Later, a property dealer M Sebastain and his accomplice T Mini were arrested while another accomplice S Manoj reportedly died by suicide after the crime branch summoned him for questioning, the HT report added.

The family of Sarojini K, a 58-year-old woman who died in 2014 under suspicious circumstances just a few kilometers from the residence of the accused couple in the suspected human sacrifice case in Elanthoor, likewise urged a further probe into her killing, the report further said.

According to the HT report, the Kerala police, meanwhile, have decided to re-open all cases pertaining to missing complaints of women in Ernakulam and Pathanamthitta districts in the last five years. As many as 12 such cases were reported from Pathanamthitta and 14 from Ernakulam in the past five years, a senior police officer was quoted as saying.