Kochi: Police on Friday arrested a convict in a 2011 rape and murder case within hours of his escape from a high-security prison in Kerala’s Kannur.
Govindachamy was serving a life sentence in Kannur Central Jail for allegedly throwing a 23-year-old girl, Soumya, off a moving train and raped her in the woods near the railway track at Vallathol Nagar railway station on February 1, 2011.
Govindachamy had escaped from his cell in the 10th block of the prison around 4 am on Friday. After a manhunt, he was apprehended from a well behind the office of the National Sample Survey in the Talap neighbourhood around 11 am.
“We got the information that he had escaped around 6.30 am. The information was relayed to all the wings of the police. Public was alerted through the media. We analysed CCTV visuals in the city and got a lot of input from the public. He was found hiding inside a well of an abandoned compound in Talap,” Kannur superintendent of police P Nidhin Raj said.
{{/usCountry}}“We got the information that he had escaped around 6.30 am. The information was relayed to all the wings of the police. Public was alerted through the media. We analysed CCTV visuals in the city and got a lot of input from the public. He was found hiding inside a well of an abandoned compound in Talap,” Kannur superintendent of police P Nidhin Raj said.
{{/usCountry}}Raj said that police are investigating if anyone from inside the jail helped him to escape. “It is found that he was planning the escape for the last few days,” he added.
Soumya, a native of Shornur in Palakkad district, boarded the Ernakulam–Shornur passenger train on February 1. As soon as the train left the Vallathol Nagar railway station, Govindachamy allegedly assaulted her and repeatedly slammed her head against the walls of the compartment before throwing her out of the train. He too jumped out of the slow moving train and found Soumya lying near the railway tracks. He carried her to the nearby woods and raped her. He was arrested from Palakkad railway station the next day.
Soumya, who was working as a supermarket assistant in Ernakulam, died while undergoing treatment at the Government Medical College in Thrissur on February 6, 2011.