After nearly a decade of evading the authorities, a mother-daughter duo, accused of killing a woman, was finally arrested by the police last week. The Kannur Crime Branch arrested 55-year-old Parveen Babu and her 32-year-old daughter Sakeena Fathima in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, using advanced AI tools. The police were able to track them after one of them used their ID to take a mobile network connection.
As per reports, the mother and daughter were wanted in connection with a 2016 murder-robbery case. They are accused of killing 60-year-old Meradan Kunjamina inside her own home in Kannur, Kerala. The victim’s body, bearing 19 deep wounds, was found tied to a chair, and about 80 grams of gold were missing from her house. During the initial probe, the police identified Parveen Babu and her two children, Sakeena Fathima and Askar Ali, and issued lookout notices against them with their photos. The family had been living in a rented house near the victim’s house.
According to Kannur crime branch SP Balakrishnan Nair, the family posed as cloth sellers from Surat, Gujarat, to rent the premises near the victim’s house. “We came to know that the family had sold their costly mobile phone a few days after the incident, after erasing all data and other details. Not to be tracked down, they had furnished fake documents to get the house on rent. The SIM card of the phone was obtained by submitting a Karnataka woman’s documents. In return, the woman was given clothes free of cost,” SP Nair said.
During their stay near the victim’s house, the family constantly interacted with her and gained her trust before committing the crime. On April 30, 2016, the accused attacked the victim with a knife. She was stabbed repeatedly on the neck, chest and abdomen. The accused fled with her gold chain, bangle and some cash. For nearly 10 years, the family, who spoke multiple languages, remained on the run to escape law enforcement.
How the family kept fooling the police
The family lived across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. They also kept changing their names at different places and used forged documents. “The accused never used their own IDs or documents for any purpose. As they kept changing places, they used new forged documents, including PAN cards, for various purposes such as getting mobile connections,” the SP said.
As per the police, Parveen kept names like Soumya Rangawala, Farida and Sudha with an address in Kushaiguda, Hyderabad. Initially, the case was filed in the Irukkur police station in 2016. However, considering the interstate nature of crime, it was handed over to the Crime Branch in 2024.
Notably, the investigation into the murder-robbery case revealed that the family had earlier been arrested in a similar robbery in Ongole, Andhra Pradesh, in 2013. They had looted gold and cash after attacking an elderly woman. Not just that, the family jumped bail in the case as the police found out that the two women who stood surety were paid.
How the criminal saga came to an end
A few months back, the family reportedly approached a bank for a loan. However, after examining their documents, the bank noticed that the mobile number provided by them did not belong to them. As a result, the daughter was compelled to obtain a mobile connection using her real ID. That proved to be a fatal mistake for the family, which put them on the radar of the authorities. “This led to their real details landing in the government database, enabling us to search such details using AI tools,’’ said SP Nair.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Sudheer Kallan, who is a part of the investigation team, said that last month the police secured a mobile number in the name of Fathima from the Andhra Pradesh police. “When this number was searched in the National Intelligence Grid — a platform that connects to various government and private databases — we got bank details and the daughter’s PAN card. We found the photos also matched those of the absconding. The crime branch used the Gandiva (which is part of NATGRID), an advanced AI-driven analytical tool for tracking down and identifying the accused persons,” DSP Kallan said.
A team led by Kannur Crime Branch Superintendent of Police P Balakrishnan Nair, along with DSP Sudheer Kallan, SI Abdul Rahuf of Kannur Rural DHQ, SI Girish, SI Sudheesh and ASI Manjula carried out the entire operation. The accused were produced before the Judicial Magistrate First Class in a Kannur Court and were taken into police custody for further investigation.
