Kerala govt orders probe into reports of fugitive Sukumara Kurup being alive in Brunei

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala has directed the Crime Branch to verify reports that the state’s most wanted fugitive, Sukumara Kurup, is alive in Brunei under an assumed identity, saying the claims circulating in the media are, at present, only rumours.

The Kerala Police have also contacted Interpol to ascertain the authenticity of the reports.

Chennithala said the Crime Branch ADGP had been asked to investigate the claims and establish the facts.

Responding to allegations that a report related to the case had been suppressed, he said the incident dated back to the tenure of former state Home Minister Vayalar Ravi, and further asked what was there to hide all these years.

The development follows reports that an elderly man resembling Kurup has been traced to Brunei, where he is allegedly living under a false name near the Malaysia-Brunei border and working in the construction sector.

The reports claimed that he had been maintaining contact with his family in Kerala.

However, police officials said they had received no such information independently and that the basis of the claims remained unclear.

Checks involving the Malayali community in Brunei have also raised doubts over the identity of the man seen in the visuals, with a possibility that he could be another person from Thrissur.

The fresh claims have surfaced just as the police were preparing to close their 42-year-old investigation into Kurup’s disappearance.

The Crime Branch had reopened the case three months ago as part of an effort to settle long-pending cases.

A special team headed by IG Ajitha Begum had been examining the case and was reportedly inclined to conclude that Kurup was no longer alive.

Kurup disappeared after the sensational murder of Chacko on January 22, 1984, allegedly as part of a plot to fake his own death and claim an insurance payout of around Rs 8 lakh.

Chacko, a film representative who resembled Kurup, was allegedly given alcohol, strangled and his body placed in a car that was then set ablaze.

The post-mortem exposed the deception.

While police arrested Kurup’s alleged accomplices, including Bhaskara Pillai, the alleged mastermind disappeared and has remained beyond the reach of the law ever since.

The latest claims have now forced the police to revisit a mystery they were preparing to close.

IANS