Cold case files circle of friends
On vacations to Kerala, Kurup brought suitcases filled with goodies for his friends and family as was common in those days with Gulf Malayalis. One such friend was Shahu, a native of Chavakkad in Thrissur district, who worked as an office boy in Kurup’s firm and went on to play a significant role in the latter’s future. He earned a great deal of goodwill by helping his friends in moments of crisis, irrespective of how close they were to him. Soon, his wife joined him in Abu Dhabi as a nurse at a private hospital.Īccording to DySP Haridas, Kurup found happiness in the company of his friends and wasn’t reluctant to spend lavishly on parties. The job brought in a steady income and as an extrovert, Kurup was able to quickly cultivate a band of close friends for whom he was ‘Suku’, the darling of the group. The next chapter of his life in Abu Dhabi with the Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company was largely seen as peaceful, according to police accounts. Shortly after he left the IAF and prepared to move to Abu Dhabi, he married Sarasamma in a secret ceremony at a temple in Matunga, rebelling against his family’s wishes. When his parents got wind of it, they were furious and sent letters to Sarasamma ordering her to end the affair. Their affair grew as Sarasamma joined for a nursing course in Mumbai when Kurup was in the IAF. He began a relationship with Sarasamma, whose mother was a domestic help at Kurup’s Cheriyanad home, after he saw her at a relative’s home in Mumbai. Kurup displayed the same shades of intrepid behaviour when it came to love. Pillai and Kurup are sub-castes of the Nair community in Kerala.
He also bid goodbye to that name when he applied for a passport in order to migrate to the Gulf and took on a new name: Sukumara Pillai. By bribing a head-constable in the special branch of the police, he forged a report stating Gopalakrishna Kurup, the ‘airman’, had died and sent it to the IAF to close the ‘deserter’ inquiry.
It was at this juncture that the first shoots of a crooked mind in Kurup began to crop up. But it seemed the work didn’t interest him as he failed to return to his unit after a long leave at home and was thus branded a ‘deserter.’ After completing his pre-degree course (the equivalent of today’s Class XII), he joined the Indian Air Force as an airman. It was Gopalakrishna Kurup.īorn into a middle-class, upper-caste household in Cheriyanad, Kurup was drawn to adventure from an early age. Sukumara Kurup wasn’t the name he was given at birth. Debris of the engine of the car in which Chacko was burnt still remains at the Mavelikkara police station compound. But one constant remains: Kurup, whose name and exploits got etched in the collective psyche of Malayalis, is still on the run, at least on record.
COLD CASE FILES CIRCLE OF FRIENDS TRIAL
The trial in the case began and ended, the accused have served their time and families, torn apart by the episode, have begun to heal. He had no clue that day that he would be drawn into a murder case that would define his career and go on to become one of the most sensational cases in the criminal history of Kerala. It’s been 36 years since that January morning on which DySP Haridas arrived at the site of a burning car.
The body found charred in the car, the police later learnt, was that of Alappuzha-native Chacko, a film representative who turned out to be the hapless victim of a diabolical plot hatched by Kurup, Pillai and two others to become rich overnight. While the remains were handed over to Kurup’s family on the condition that it be buried and not cremated, unknown to the police at the time, Kurup was very much alive and in hiding at a lodge in Aluva, 115 km away. Though his face had been charred beyond recognition, his co-brother Bhaskara Pillai testified it was him by the looks of his height, build and the fact that he hadn’t returned home after he drove out to Ambalapuzha, a nearby town, the previous day in that car. A few of his relatives arrived at the spot weeping, trying to get a last glimpse of him. The presence of liquor and ethyl alcohol in the deceased’s digestive tract added to the mystery.īy then, word had spread that the deceased was Sukumara Kurup, a 30-something native of nearby Cheriyanad who had arrived from the Gulf a couple of weeks ago. The examination confirmed the police’s suspicions that the person had been killed before he was placed in the driving seat of the car because there were no traces of charcoal or ash in his respiratory tract. The police surgeon was called for and the victim’s body was subjected to post-mortem in the field itself. The body in the car was that of Alappuzha-native Chacko, a film representative who became the victim of a diabolical get-rich-quick plot by Kurup, Pillai and two others.