The Kerala Police has claimed to have solved a 19-year-old triple murder case with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
In a case of murder of a woman and her 17-day-old twins in 2006, the Kerala Police last week arrested two former armymen with the help of AI, according to The Indian Express.
In 2006, when the case was first reported, the police swiftly identified Divil Kumar and Rajesh as suspects. The two armymen belonged to Kerala and were stationed in Punjab’s Pathankot. However, despite early progress, the suspects vanished and the case eventually remained unsolved for nearly two decades.
Nineteen years later, on January 4, 2025, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested the two men in Puducherry, where they had been living under false identities.
Divil Kumar, now 42, had assumed the name Vishnu, while Rajesh, 48, adopted new name Praveen Kumar. They were working as interior designers and were married to schoolteachers.
The breakthrough in the case was made possible through a combination of advanced AI technology and persistent investigation.
Kerala ADGP (Law and Order) Manoj Abraham told The Indian Express, “Our technical intelligence team used artificial intelligence to revisit this long-pending case. Old photographs of the suspects were digitally aged to predict their current appearance, factoring in changes such as hairstyles and facial features. These AI-generated images were then cross-referenced with photos on social media platforms. One AI image had a 90 per cent match with a wedding photograph found on Facebook. This match led us to Rajesh in Puducherry, who eventually guided us to Divil. Since the case was under the jurisdiction of the CBI, we informed their Chennai unit, which carried out the arrests.”
Abraham emphasised the rarity of AI being used in solving such an old criminal case.
Ranjini and the accused Divil, neighbors from Alayamon in Kollam, were in a relationship. When Ranjini became pregnant and decided to keep the babies, their relationship soured, and Divil returned to his Army post in Pathankot. In January 2006, Ranjini gave birth to twin daughters at a hospital in Thiruvananthapuram.
Rajesh, a colleague and friend of Devil in the Army, posed as Anil Kumar from Kollam to befriend Ranjini. Police revealed that Rajesh and Devil conspired to kill Ranjini and her children. Both were on leave when the alleged crime occurred.
On the day of the alleged crime, Rajini’s mother returned from the panchayat office where she had gone to collect the twins’ birth certificates and found Rajini and her newborn twins dead.
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Kerala police use AI to crack 19-year-old triple murder case
