How a missing complaint in Tamil Nadu turned into a sordid tale of murder and cannibalism
On November 15, M Padmini, filed a complaint with the Cholapuram (Thanjavur district) police that her 27-year-old grandson, Ashok Rajan, was missing
Chennai What started with a missing-person complaint ended up as gory tale of lust, murder and cannibalism — with a twist that suggested that there could be more surprises in store.
On November 15, M Padmini, filed a complaint with the Cholapuram (Thanjavur district) police that her 27-year-old grandson, Ashok Rajan, had been missing for two days after he left for Chennai to resume his duty as a driver. He never joined duty, she added in her complaint, and his phone was switched off.
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The police started investigating the case as a routine missing person matter. Tracking his phone records, police found that on November 13, after he left his grandmother’s house, he visited T Kesavamoorthi, a Siddha (traditional medicine) practitioner, also in Cholapuram. When asked about this, Kesavamoorthi, 47, said Rajan had indeed visited him, but then left for Chennai.
Kesavamoorthi, who hails from Cholapuram, had studied only up to Class 10, police say, but claimed to have learnt Siddha from a practitioner in Chennai where he went after school. He returned to his home town around 15 years ago. A police officer who asked not to be named said he made a name for himself by claiming he could treat impotency, and sold what he claimed were aphrodisiacs.
Not surprisingly, his services were popular.
“In a month, at least 50 people used to visit him,” the officer added. “His treatment worked for some so he became popular through word of mouth.”
But the practice also provided Kesavamoorthi an avenue to target young men, the officer said.
The police knew none of this, of course, but unable to make any headway in Rajan’s case, they turned to Kesavamoorthi again.
“On sustained questioning and [after] pointing [to] inconsistencies in his statement, he confessed to murdering Rajan,” a statement from the Thanjavur district police said on November 27. The missing complaint was changed to murder. “He also confessed to being a homosexual and in a sexual relationship with Rajan,” the statement added.
The same afternoon, the police and forensic experts went to Kesavamoorthi’s house to search for body parts. A senior police officer said the accused’s pet dog led them to a spot in the backyard where they found a skull buried. “We started digging and found chopped parts of the body buried in his backyard, and in a garden where he grew herbs. All internal organs were missing. Initially, we thought it was to be a case of organ trade,” the police officer cited above said.
Police asked Kesavamoorthi about the missing organs. “Initially, he did not speak and kept quiet. On sustained interrogation and after showing him all circumstantial evidence, he confessed that he cooked the organs and ate them,” said a second police officer who was part of the interrogation.
The officer, who asked not to be named, recalled that investigators were stunned to hear how he removed the organs — including the liver and the brain — and cooked them.
But the body parts turned up a surprise — among them, the police found a jaw bone. Forensic investigators said it could not have be of Rajan, whose skull, damaged as it was, had been found. “It was sent for forensic examination, which revealed it to be of another man,” the second officer said.
The Thanjavur police started tracking missing complaints that had not been closed. They compared photographs of missing people with images found on Kesavamoorthi’s phone. It didn’t take them long to identify the victim as Mohammed Anas, a local who had been missing since 2021.
“When we questioned Anas’s family, they confirmed that he used to visit Kesavamoorthi’s house regularly. The accused’s phone records showed that he used speak with Anas regularly,” the first police officer said. “We had strong evidence to link Kesavamoorthi with the disappearance of Anas. Confronted with evidence, he confessed.”
“He was in sexual relationship with both the victims. In both the cases, he killed the victims after they informed him they were getting married,” said Thanjavur district superintendent of police Ashish Rawat.
This was confirmed by Rajan’s grandmother, who said the family had fixed his engagement for February 2024.
In both cases, police said, the victims had visited Kesavamoorthi at night. “He gave them a drug in the form of a tablet that kept them sedated for at least half a day. He killed them after having sex with them,” the first police officer said, adding that the forensic analysis of Rajan’s body parts showed that the cause of death was bleeding from the cuts allegedly inflicted by Kesavamoorthi.
Police claim the accused watched surgery videos on YouTube to learn how to make incisions. The post-mortem of the first victim Rajan revealed that the accused used machetes and a grinding machine to cut into the ribs and forcefully yank out the organs, the first police officer said. “Whatever he did not eat, he fed his pet dog.”
The officer added that Kesavamoorthi did the same in Anas’s case, but that this time, he “cooked and ate Rajan’s organs”.
This was pre-planned, police said. They claim Kesavamoorthi bought lots of masala from the local market to cook organs such as liver; and that he cooked and ate the organs on the same day he committed Rajan’s murder — November 13.
Cholapuram village head A Namibrajan said many young men were Kesavamoorthi’s friends. “When I warned some of them to not spend too much time in Kesavamoorthi’s house, the families would come out in their support. So, I stopped interfering,” he said. He said Kesavamoorthi was married twice but that both his wives left him. “His estranged elder brother lives a street away from him,” Nambirajan said, adding that the entire town is shocked over the two murders.
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Only, police suspect there may be more.
They have now cast a wider net in adjoining districts of Thanjavur such as Ariyalur, Mayiladuthurai to investigate if there are more victims. “A list of people who were treated by Kesavamoorthi is being prepared,” a police statement said.