A piece of collar tag with hardly readable words and burnt pieces of collar cloth were all the first clue with which the Silaiman police proceeded with the investigation of a murder case reported on July 14. For, the body was burnt with palmyra leaves found in the secluded place near Ilamanur tank.

Almost the entire body had superficial burns which made its identification difficult, said a police officer. Blood stains on a boulder, pair of chappals, a broken mobile phone were the possible clues left at the scene of crime. However, a small piece of cloth of the partially burnt shirt collar gave some hope for the police.

The police had to enlarge the miniscule collar tag with a help of a photograph to read it.

“All that we could make out was Y OTK,” said Superintendent of Police B.K. Arvind.

With this, the police identified a tailor shop at Y. Othakadai.

The police went there with the hope that the sample of the shirt clothe would be available in the “stitching order” copy. However, the tailor did not have that habit of retaining the sample of the clothe.

However, the police team led by Inspector of Police Tamil Selvan got information that it could be uniform for students of Industrial Training Institute at K. Pudur.

The tailor was able to give details of a few students, who had stitched the uniform in his shop and based on that information, the investigation took off.

The tailor pointed out at a youth and told the police that the youth’s younger brother was one of his customers. However, the youth had told the police that his brother was at home. With not much success in their attempt, the police left the place.

However, within a few hours, the same youth came to the police to tell them that his younger brother Prasanna, 17, was missing.

Later, the family members identified the body with the left hand having an additional finger and the broken mobile phone.

After identification of the body, the rest of the investigation fell in line.

The police suspected one of Prasanna’s close friend Ramar. As he absconded, the suspicion got strengthened.

Meanwhile, the police got a video footage of CCTV which showed Prasanna, along with four others, including Ramar, riding on a bike on the day of murder. An enquiry revealed that a petty quarrel had led to the murder. While two of the accused surrendered before the court, the police arrested the remaining two.