19 years after murder of woman, 17-day-old twins, AI tools help Kerala cops nab killers from Puducherry

CHENNAI: Nineteen years since going underground after the two friends brutally murdered a woman and her twin children, all of 17 days old, which one of them allegedly fathered, a team of special investigators from Kerala traced them to Puducherry where they were hiding in plain sight, protected by new names, identities, and families they raised in those two decades.

After the breakthrough in the cold case, which happened thanks to the diligent investigators who used an artificial intelligence tool that reconstructed images to show how the duo would look after all these years and then traced one of them from a photo taken at a wedding ceremony, the Kerala police passed on the information to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which arrested Divil Kumar and his friend Rajesh from Puducherry on Friday.

“We keep trying to track absconding accused linked to cases in Kerala. The technical intelligence wing made use of reverse image search, aided by AI tools, and found matches on social media. This was used to trace the present address and the information was handed over to the central agency," Manoj Abraham, ADGP (Law & Order), Kerala, told DT Next over phone.

Divil from Anchal in Kollam district and Praveen from Kannur district served together in the Indian Army's 45 AD Regiment in Pathankot.

Divil, who was 28 years old then, was reportedly in a relationship with Ranjini (24). But when she became pregnant, he started distancing himself from her. Ranjini delivered twin girls on January 24, 2006, and later approached the Kerala State Women's Commission, which ordered Divil to appear for a DNA test to determine the twins’ paternity.

The fear that the DNA test would reveal he was the father of the twin girls allegedly spurred Divil to kill her and the babies with the help of his friend Rajesh (in his early 30s then) on February 10, 2006.

After the investigation by the Kerala police identified them as accused in the triple murder, the friends went absconding. As the investigation stalled, Ranjini’s family managed to shift the probe to the CBI, which took over the inquiry in 2008. It issued a lookout notice for Divil and Rajesh, and promised a reward of Rs 2 lakh for information on them.

As no clues turned up, it was also suspected that the duo had fled abroad. By then, the army had declared them as deserters.

While on the run, Divil changed his name to Vishnu while Rajesh became Praveen Kumar. Both came to Puducherry, got married, fathered children, purchased properties, and were working as interior decorators.

But the sleuths part of the technical intelligence wing of the Kerala Police used AI tools to reconstruct images of how they would look now, compared them with social media photos, and found a match for Divil from a photo taken at a wedding he attended. This helped the team trace Divil and later, Rajesh, to Puducherry, leading to their arrest.