When a middle-aged woman was found dead in her bedroom in Kayamkulam,South Kerala,on July 12,as her husband and family lay sleeping in nearby rooms,the police hardly suspected what her murder would unravel. Their investigations found that 47-year-old Zaheera (name changed) kept four mobile numbers,of which her husband was unaware,and that her murder was the result of a two-year-old friendship that developed from a random phone call she had received on one of them. Unusual as the case was,it wasnt the first instance of a wrong/missed mobile call or SMS resulting in death in Kerala. The police have registered at least three such cases in recent times. In the Kayamkulam case,the police claim to have traced the calls on Zaheeras phone to Sunilkumar,24,a native of Palakkad,and believe he strangled her. According to investigating officer D Bijukumar,Sunilkumar had the habit of making missed calls to random numbers. One such call he made was to Zaheera,a mother of three,two years ago. After having long conversations over the phone,the two decided to meet for the first time on July 11. When Sunilkumar reached Zaheeras home,she told him to hide under the cot in the bedroom as her husband was around. Later,after the husband had gone to sleep,Sunilkumar allegedly gave some pills to Zaheera,telling her these were for sexual prowess. Sunilkumar apparently planned to rob Zaheera after they had had sex and she was sleeping. However,the pills didnt work,and Zaheera kept awake. Meanwhile,Sunilkumars phone rang and he told her it was his fiancee on the phone. An altercation followed,which ended in Sunilkumar allegedly strangulating Zaheera,as he was afraid she would tell on him. Later,he left,taking her ornaments. Last March,an SMS sent accidentally by a Class IX girl to a wrong person was said to have led to the murder of a youth in Kochi. The girl owned two SIM cards,and was trying to send the SMS to her boyfriend when she directed it to a stranger by mistake. The latter tried to suggest there was more to the incident,and in the resulting altercation,a friend of his was killed. In February 2008,a woman in Chalakkudy in Thrissur was murdered following a relationship developed over a wrong call. The victim,a sales girl,got a wrong call from a youth,who instantly apologised for the mistake. But that was only the beginning of a trap. The youth handed over her number to his friend,who started calling the girl. Later,the duo sexually abused the woman and strangled her to death after robbing her. Although the womans SIM card was destroyed by the youths,one of them continued to use her handset,which helped the police crack the case. In April this year,the wife of an NRI at Attingal in Thiruvananthapuram was robbed by a Kozhikode-based youth who won her heart over a missed call and came to stay with her. A year ago,a 32-year-old housewife at Kunnamkulam in Thrissur was murdered and chopped into pieces allegedly by her mobile friend. The affair began after the woman accidentally called up the man,who was in his early 20s. Working as an executive with a private cellular service provider,the man tracked down the woman,the wife of an NRI and a mother of two. After they had stuck up a relationship,he allegedly took her to a lodge in Guruvayur,where she was gangraped by some men engaged by him. She was later murdered,and her body cut up and thrown into a river.
