Tarun Karthick
Sri Vijaya Puram, 30 December 2024
A missing minor boy was shot in the leg by a police bullet during an operation on December 29, 2024, in the Shoal Bay area of South Andaman. The bullet, fired by a sub-inspector, was intended for another suspect who attacked a head constable with a machete during an attempt to arrest them.
The minor boy reportedly tried to evade arrest with other three suspects when the police reached their hideout in forest. He allegedly resisted by attacking a head constable who was attempting to catch him. One of the two suspects from Tamil Nadu, Kannan Marappan, tried assaulting the head constable with a machete, which led to the sub-inspector resorting to the use of his weapon.
Earlier on December 27, 2024, the father of the minor boy had visited PS Bambooflat and informed the police that Kannan Marappan and Saravanan Ramesh—two suspects wanted by the police in Brichgunj Murder Case—might have taken his son with them.
The father disclosed that his son, a hotel management student in Tamil Nadu, had returned to Sri Vijaya Puram on November 18, 2024, claiming to be unwell. The boy reportedly told his father that he had befriended two strangers—later identified as Kannan and Saravanan—at Chennai Airport and on their flight to the islands.
The father also informed the police that his son had met these individuals several times after returning home. The suspects from Tamil Nadu reportedly spoke to the Minor Boy over phone and he once went to meet them in a hotel in Shadipur area. On December 22, 2024, the suspects from Tamil Nadu called the boy to Bambooflat Jetty. The boy reportedly picked them up and brought them to his house, where they stayed overnight. The next day, December 23, 2024, the boy left home with the suspects from Tamil Nadu and did not return.
The father said his son’s phone had remained switched off since he left. He also mentioned that his son had on previous occasion been missing from home for five days with his phone off, which is why he initially didn’t search for him, assuming he would return on his own.
The situation escalated when the boy’s sister saw a YouTube video about the Brichgunj murder case and recognised the two suspects shown in the video as the individuals who had stayed at their house. She informed her father, who immediately approached the police with this information.
The extent of the minor boy’s involvement in the Nisha Rani murder case remains unclear. However, it is evident that he harboured the suspects, Kannan Marappan and Saravanan Ramesh from Tamil Nadu, hid with them in the Shoal Bay forest, and tried to evade police when they arrived to capture them.
Another suspect Sheikh Haqib, 26, from the Andaman Islands, was also reported missing before being found with the two accused from Tamil Nadu in Shoal Bay Forest area.