In a significant breakthrough, the CBI has arrested two men, Divil Kumar (42) and Rajesh P (48), in connection with the brutal murders of Ranjini (24) and her 17-day-old twin daughters in Anchal, Kollam, nearly 19 years after the crime. The arrests were made in Puducherry, where the men had been living under false identities while running a business.
Divil Kumar, the alleged father of the twins, and Rajesh P, both former Army personnel, were taken into custody after a tip-off from Kerala Police. The breakthrough came when the police traced the men through Facebook. An old photograph of the accused was matched with a recent one uploaded by them on social media, which eventually led to their identification and arrest.
The murders occurred on February 10, 2006, at a rented house in Yeram, Anchal, where Ranjini and the newborn twins were living. On the day of the incident, Ranjini’s mother had gone to the panchayat office to secure birth certificates for the twins. Upon her return, she discovered the bodies of Ranjini and the babies.
The investigation revealed that Rajesh P had befriended Ranjini and her family during the twins’ delivery at SAT Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram. He assured Ranjini that he would help her marry Divil Kumar legally. The case took a violent turn when the Kerala State Women’s Commission ordered a DNA test to confirm Divil’s paternity of the twins. This led to the brutal murders, as Divil and Rajesh fled the scene after the incident.
Both men had served as Indian Army personnel with the 45 AD Regiment in Pathankot, and after their disappearance, they were declared deserters in March 2006. The case was initially handled by local police and the crime branch but was transferred to the CBI in February 2010, following an order from the Kerala High Court.
In 2013, the CBI filed a chargesheet against the accused. On Saturday, the men were presented before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court in Kochi and remanded to judicial custody. The CBI is expected to seek further custody for investigation and conduct a search at the crime scene in Anchal.
