The Kattappana Double Murder Case: How A Petty Theft Unravelled Two Different Murders

What started as an investigation for a petty theft soon became a double murder case in the village of Kakkattukada in Kerala’s Idukki district. On Wednesday, the Kerala police arrested two residents of Kakkattukada, namely, Nitheesh and Vishnu Vijayan, as the prime accused in Kattappana’s double murder case.

The macabre saga began to unfold when a police team investigating a theft case stumbled upon a horrifying connection leading to a double murder committed seven years apart.

On March 2, the Kerala police interrogated Vishnu, 27, and Nitheesh, 31, after the two were caught for theft at a Kattappana workshop. While Nitheesh managed to evade capture initially, he was later apprehended by the police.

During the course of the investigation, the police made a shocking discovery at Vishnu’s rented house. Locked away in a room were Vishnu’s mother, Suma Vijayan, and his sister, Vidhya Vijayan. Vidhya, in her statements to the authorities, provided grim details of the double murder, implicating Nitheesh as her live-in partner and the perpetrator of two horrendous murders.

The first victim, a four-day-old infant, was killed in 2016, while the second victim, a 60-year-old man, was murdered in August 2023.

According to Vidhya’s account, Nitheesh murdered the infant, born out of wedlock, fearing social stigma in 2016, at a house in Sagara Junction in Kattappana. The second victim, NG Vijayan, father of the Vijayan siblings, was murdered in August 2023 at their rented house in Kakkattukada, allegedly at the hands of Nitheesh, who smashed the victim’s head with a hammer after a heated argument between the two.

As per Nitheesh’s claims, Vidhya’s father, Vijayan, was an accomplice in the murder of the infant. In 2023, Suma and Vishnu helped Nitheesh bury the body of Vijayan in a desperate attempt to keep the previous crimes under wraps.

As the investigation moved on, it was revealed that Nitheesh had locked Vidhya and Suma inside the house after they became mentally unstable following Vijayan’s murder.

According to an intelligence wing official, “Nitheesh was a sorcerer, and he had brought the entire family under his influence through his witchcraft. Even the house owned by the family in Sagara Junction was sold as per his direction, and the family has been staying at various rented houses in the Kattappana area for the last several years,” as quoted in The New Indian Express.

The police, aided by a sniffer dog, unearthed crucial evidence. A newly-plastered portion of the floor in the rented house was excavated, revealing what is believed to be the skeletal remains of NG Vijayan. DNA tests and the postmortem report are awaited to confirm the identity of the body and the cause of death. However, despite an intense search, the infant’s remains remained elusive.

Nitheesh’s contradictory statements have perplexed the police, as the accused later changed his statement, claiming the buried body in the cowshed was dug out and burned, with its remains immersed by Vijayan in the Ayyappancoil river.

Ernakulam Range Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Putta Vimaladitya has announced the formation of a special team to investigate the case. Suma, Vishnu, and Vidhya are under interrogation to confirm the veracity of Nitheesh’s claims regarding the infant’s murder. Both Suma and Vishnu have been charged with the murder of Vijayan. Vidhya has been left in the care of other family members.