A 37-year-old woman’s body was exhumed in Kerala on Thursday two years after she was found dead in Abu Dhabi along with her employer days after a Special Investigation Team (SIT) found the involvement of a gang in their murders, which were passed off as suicide.
TP Harris, the employer, was found dead with his wrist slit while Densi Antony was suffocated to death. The UAE Police concluded Harris killed Antony before dying by suicide.
The family of Antony, a mother of three, was first told she died in an accident, and later her death was attributed to cardiac arrest. Antony’s body was later flown to Kerala for burial. Harris’s body was earlier exhumed and sent for forensic investigation last week.
Harris and Antony’s deaths came under the spotlight when the SIT found clues about the gang’s involvement in them while probing the murder of Mysuru-based traditional healer Shaba Shareef. The members of the Shaibin Ashraf gang were arrested for the killing of Shareef, who was abducted from Mysuru in 2019 and murdered a year later.
Harris’s mother petitioned to the police and sought a probe into the death of her son in March 2020 following the arrest of the gang members in May. Ashraf was a former business partner of Harris.
The SIT last week approached a court to exhume Antony’s remains, which were sent for forensic examination to the Thrissur Medical College Hospital.
T Varkey, one of Antony’s relatives, said they had some suspicions but had no evidence. “It seems to be a brutal murder,” he said.
An SIT official said they came across a “blueprint” prepared to eliminate Harris and Antony during their probe into Shareef’s murder. SIT suspects Ashraf engaged a criminal gang of eight, sent them to the UAE in 2020, and arranged a flat for them in the same building where Harris stayed. Four people allegedly involved in the murder of the healer were also involved in the twin killings, SIT said.
SIT found Harris was trapped in his flat. He was killed after being forced to suffocate Antony to get his fingerprints on her body. After torturing him, his wrist was slit. Antony was suffocated to death with her shawl.
SIT found Ashraf was monitoring everything from Wayanad in Kerala. Some of the gang members handed over a pen drive with some conversations with references to the twin murder case and how it was passed off as suicide to police.
On April 28, three of the gang members, who fell out with Ashraf, tried to immolate themselves saying he was hounding them. They told police about the healer’s killing and handed over the pen drive. They admitted they were partners in many such crimes, which led to arrests.
Two weeks back, retired police officer S Surendran, who was close to Ashraf, surrendered to a court in Idukki after evading arrest for four months. Police suspect Surendran helped Ashraf and assisted him in his activities.
