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The bodies in the trunks
THE CITY police is faced with another body-in-a-steel-trunk murder mystery. The trunk was found at the Central Station and, as these lines are written, a possible identification is likely to have been made. A Calcutta origin of the body is thought to be likely, but the case is yet to be solved.
A rather similar case was the famous Alavandar murder case in the early 1950s. When Kamal Hassan's recent digital duet was first announced, I thought it would narrate the rather sordid tale of the tawdry crime, but Kamal was filming another Alavandan who appeared to revel in sickening violence. Nowhere near as gruesome, though violent, was the Alavandar-in-a-trunk case of the 1950s.
Alavandar, an ex-serviceman-turned-businessman, had been reported missing and a policeman searching for him found a head bobbing in the sea off Royapuram. A few days later, the Manamadurai police found an unclaimed trunk in the Indo-Ceylon `Boat Mail' and in it, a headless body. It didn't take long to match body and head and identification soon followed. Then began the questioning of scores of women and their families when it came to light that Alavandar was a local version of Casanova, despite his unprepossessing looks. And in Royapuram, the police hit pay dirt.
A Devaki had broken off her affair with Alavandar to marry a Menon. But Alavandar would not be put off. When he resorted to blackmail, Devaki confessed her earlier indiscretions to her husband. And an understanding husband decided to do away with the man who would not take `No' for an answer. Devaki invited Alavandar home one evening and Menon did the rest. They got rid of the head thinking the sea would swallow it and make identification of the body-in-the-trunk impossible. They then fled to Bombay.
Found guilty by the Jury — yes, Madras had trial by jury from the first years of its founding till well into Independence - the couple found Justice A.S.P. Ayyar taking a rather sympathetic view, calling the woman "a victim'' and their crime not murder but "an execution.'' He sentenced them to a few years in prison and on their release, they migrated to Kerala where they set up a business, with Justice Ayyar's portrait looking down in blessing on their shop.
An earlier body-in-the-trunk case in the Madras Presidency, a body wrapped in a mat and other stories of bodies found on trains, all figured in a column, `Crime Notebook,' that that indefatigable recorder of crimes past, Randor Guy, once wrote. Perhaps he'll one day expand them into a book.
S.MUTHIAH
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