After nearly a decade on the run, two women have been arrested in connection with the 2016 murder and robbery of an elderly woman in Kannur, Kerala, highlighting the persistence of law enforcement in solving cold cases.
Two women accused in the 2016 murder and robbery of an elderly woman in Kannur district have been arrested after they remained absconding for nearly a decade, police said on Saturday.
The arrested accused have been identified as Parveen Banu (55) and her daughter Sakkeena Fathima (32), both natives of Nangloi in New Delhi.
They were involved in the brutal murder of 60-year-old Meradan Kunjamina, a resident of Siddique Nagar under the Irikkur police station limits in Kannur, on April 30, 2016, Crime Branch officials said.
Investigators said the accused had rented a house near the victim's residence posing as textile traders and gradually developed a friendship with Kunjamina.
During their stay, they gained the elderly woman's trust and frequently interacted with her, officials said.
On the morning of April 30, 2016, the accused allegedly lured the woman to their rented house and attacked her with a knife.
She was stabbed repeatedly on the neck, chest and abdomen before the accused ensured her death and fled with a gold chain weighing about two-and-a-half sovereigns, a bangle and cash, officials said.
The women had earlier been involved in a similar crime in Andhra Pradesh and had managed to secure bail before fleeing, investigators said.
To evade arrest, the accused took several precautions, including renting houses using fake documents, disposing of their mobile phones before committing the crime and using SIM cards obtained through others, police said.
They also avoided staying in one place for long and frequently changed locations to escape detection.
After the murder, the accused stayed in various parts of Kerala including Kannur, Kasaragod, Wayanad, Malappuram, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram, Crime Branch officials said.
They also travelled across several states such as Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi while remaining on the run.
Fluency in multiple languages including Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Hindi and English helped them move across different regions without raising suspicion, investigators said.
The case was initially registered at the Irikkur police station in 2016.
In 2024, the probe was handed over to the state Crime Branch as investigators suspected the involvement of interstate criminals, officials said.
After an extensive investigation, the Crime Branch team traced the accused to Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh and arrested them with the assistance of the local police, they said.
The operation was carried out by a team led by Kannur Crime Branch Superintendent of Police P Balakrishnan Nair along with DySP Sudheer Kallan, SI Abdul Rahuf of Kannur Rural DHQ, SI Girish, SI Sudheesh and ASI Manjula.
The accused were produced before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court in Kannur and will be taken into police custody for further interrogation, officials said.
Further investigation in the case is underway, they added.