KOCHI: Who is that woman? Why was her face mutilated? Is the gruesome killer a man or woman? These are the questions that have been baffling the police, who are investigating Kothamangalam Ayinichal murder.

The police are yet to identify the body or find any lead in the case even as the case is almost like a closed chapter. The body was found on March 31, 2017 at Periyar near Vettambara Ayinichal area in Kothamangalam. It was four-day old then and it belonged to a 45 year old woman.

The body was lying fully naked; the right hand was chopped off; the face was also disfigured, which had made the identification of the body almost impossible. Till date, five families have come to see the body, to find out whether the dead person was someone they were searching for but the DNA test didn’t turn favourable to them. The police also had not received any missing complaint on any women with similar age during that period.

Though the post-mortem was done on the very next day at Kalamassery Medical college hospital, it could not be completed as the internal organs had decayed. The police have not yet got any cue from the DNA test and chemical test of internal organs. They also have not been able to find out whether the hand was chopped off before or after the murder.

The police had conducted State-wide probe, spanning four months, to find out the identity of the dead woman .

The body was found near forest border, with sparse human population, but kilometres away lie Paniyeliporu tourist centre and nearby tourist resorts. This has made police to speculate that the woman might have been killed somewhere there and dumped in Periyar. They suspect the injury on her ribs to be the one probably caused by her killers before taking her life.
Meanwhile, the police don’t rule out the possibility of the woman having committed suicide or having been attacked by aquatic animals.