The police arrested a farmer, Suresh, 44, in connection with the death of two havildars of the Kerala Armed Police (KAP) Second Battalion camp at Muttikkulangara, near here, on Thursday.
The policemen, Ashok Kumar, 35, from Elavanchery, and M. Mohandas, 36, from Athipotta, were electrocuted from a live cable illegally set up by Suresh to trap wild boars at his farmland behind the KAP camp.
Although the police had picked up a few persons on Thursday, they were released after Suresh admitted the crime. He was arrested on Friday under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 304 for causing death by negligence and Section 204 for destruction of evidence.
Bodies shifted
The police said Suresh had set the electric trap at the farmland near his house on Wednesday evening. When he checked the trap around 1.30 a.m., he reportedly found the two men lying dead. Out of panic, Suresh shifted the bodies out of his farmland. He carried them in a wheelbarrow and dumped in a paddy field nearly 200 metres away. He also dumped the mobile phones of the two men in the paddy field.
Although mystery had shrouded the twin deaths of the policemen, the postmortem found that they were electrocuted. There were burns on their hands and legs.
The police said the two men, who lived in the quarters with their families inside the KAP camp, had gone fishing at night. However, it was not clear how they got out of the camp. They had been missing since Wednesday evening.
The police said Suresh had been involved in some cases for violation of wildlife conservation laws. The Forest department had charged a case against him in 2016 for hunting a wild boar.
