Five years after the mysterious disappearance of Jesna Maria James, a college student in the Pathanamthitta district, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday reportedly got leads in the missing case, people close to the central agency said.
They said the agency got a call from an inmate of Poojapura central jail in Thiruvananthapuram recently claiming that when he was lodged in Kollam district jail two years ago in connection with a Pocso (protection of children from sexual offences act) case, his fellow inmate from Pathanamthitta told him that he knew Jesna’s whereabouts.
After the CBI made inquiries, it reportedly found that the details given by the inmate were more or less correct, but he was absconding now, people said.
Arrested in a robbery case, the man, a native of the Pathanamthitta district, jumped the bail and absconded last year.
The people quoted above said it was not clear whether he was boasting or knew some details about her.
They said the agency sought the help of the local police to trace the absconding man.
The Kerala high court handed over the missing case to the CBI in 2021 after her brother approached the court complaining that local police and later crime branch investigations failed to make any headway.
Jesna, a B Com student of the St Dominic’s College in Kanjirappally, went missing in March 2018. Her parents said she left home on March 22, 2018, to visit one of her relatives in Mundakayam (Kottayam), and there was no information about her since then.
Later, a special investigation team (SIT) was formed and questioned many, and more than 100,000 calls she reportedly made or received were checked.
The SIT also questioned one of her male friends, who made five calls to her three days into her missing but failed to get any leads. Later, the case was handed over to the crime branch, and a cash reward of ₹5 lakh was also announced to those who came forth with any information about her.
During the crime branch investigation, officials found that she left her house as per a well-charted plan. The crime branch team inspected many locations in Chennai, Bengaluru and Kodagu.
Officials also got many prank calls saying a Jesna-like woman was spotted, but all efforts failed. Her relatives initially blamed the local police saying they sat over the complaint for several days and tried to dispose of it as a mere elopement case.
Many rumours also floated at the same time. Some Christian outfits alleged she was converted and taken to Islamic State (IS)-held areas in Syria, like the 21 missing persons from north Kerala who reportedly travelled to Syria in 2016, and many reportedly got killed later.
Widows of some of these IS fighters were languishing in Afghanistan jails, and the Union government had rejected their parents’ plea to extradite them to the country.
However, in Jesna’s case, police said there was no substance or evidence to buttress such a claim.
With some new information, her relatives said they are hoping against the hope, saying it will help the central agency to crack the case.