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TV show helps Kerala police nab convict on run
The programme was in the style of similar Most Wanted shows that have aired on TV channels, across the country and around the world, for decades -- shocking crimes; and perpetrators who had either never been caught, or who had managed to escape after being apprehended.
Thiruvananthapuram: Last week, a Karala man who works in Kollur in Karnataka was watching “Most Wanted”, a news programme on Malayalam television channel Mathrubhumi prompted by the shocking murders in Pathanamthitta, where two women were tortured and killed four months apart in a macabre ritual, and listing some of Kerala”s most wanted criminals.
The programme was in the style of similar Most Wanted shows that have aired on TV channels, across the country and around the world, for decades -- shocking crimes; and perpetrators who had either never been caught, or who had managed to escape after being apprehended.
Then, the man saw a familiar face.
The name was different. The show featured the name and photograph of K Rajesh, 38, a man sentenced to life imprisonment for rape and murder of a 15- year- old girl, but who had escaped from prison in December 2020. The man knew Rajesh by another name; he (Rajesh) was working as a rubber tapper at a private estate under an assumed identity.
Four days and a series of events later, K Rajesh is now back in prison.
On January 3, 2013 a sessions court in Kerala convicted Rajesh and sentenced him to death for murdering a 15-year girl in order to rape and steal her gold ornaments in Vattapara near the state capital. He was arrested by the Kerala police a week after the crime.
On Sept 17, 2020 the Kerala High Court commuted the sentence to a 25-year jail term without parole; Rajesh was imprisioned at the Central jail in Thiruvananthapuram’s Poojapura.
He was involved in two cases of theft and a drunken brawl in prison. In one case he was sentenced to another two-year term.
During theCovid pandemic, Rajesh was shifted to an open jail in Nettukalthery. A senior Thiruvananthapuram jail official who asked not to be named said, “During COVID, there was the problem of overcrowding in jail, and some convicts had to be shifted out of the central jail in Poojapura. His shifting to the open jail was based on his good conduct.” HOW MANY OTHERS WERE SHIFTED?
In December 2020, Rajesh and another inmate of the open jail, a man identified only as Sreenivasan escaped from the open prison. Their absence was noticed during the roll call. Sreenivasan was arrested two months later, but Rajesh was untraceable.
After the two escaped from the open jail, three jail officials were suspended for neglect.
On Friday , the Kollur man who works as a supervisor in an estate, recognized Rajesh as the man he knew as Jayan.
After his escape, Rajedh has acquired another identity, got married in 2021, and worked as a rubber tapper in Madhur in Karnataka’s Udupi.
The man, whom police are not identifying, called a friend, assistant sub inspector MC Jose, also originally from Kerala, but posted with the Karnataka Police in Kollur. Jose then alerted his superiors in Udupi, who sent photographs of Jayan to the jail authorities in Thirivananthapuram on Monday .They confirmed that the man was indeed Rajesh.
On Monday evening, Rajesh was detained at his workplace. On Tuesday, he was handed over to a team from Kerala police “It was almost a closed case and the news programme really helped us find the absconding criminal. We will reward the person who identified him ,” said a senior Kerala Police official who did not want to be named.
Rajesh will now also face charges of jailbreak.
