Motta Navas (മൊട്ട നവാസ്) is a man from Kollam, in the Indian state of Kerala, whom the city police accused in 2012 of causing the deaths of five men who slept outdoors in the city. He was arrested on November 2, 2012. He was held in jail as an undertrial prisoner while his case went through the courts in Kollam, and in March 2019 he was acquitted for lack of evidence, according to a 2024 report by the Malayalam news channel Reporter TV.
No court has found him responsible for any death. He had been arrested twice before over killings in the city, in 1996 and in 2007. In the first of those cases a court acquitted him because there were no eyewitnesses, the channel reported; in the second he was arrested and later released. The 2012 police case, as Reporter TV described it, rested on the view of investigators that one man was behind a run of deaths among people sleeping in the open. That case was tried, and it did not produce a conviction.
In June 2012 men who slept outdoors in Kollam began to die of head injuries, Reporter TV said. The first was a man of about 65, whose name has not been published.
The next day അപ്പുക്കുട്ടൻ ആചാരി died in the same part of the city. A local shopkeeper told the police that he had no known enemies.
After the second death the police concluded that a single person was responsible. They stepped up their inquiries and their night patrols, and people in the city began to fear the nights, the channel reported.
A third man, ബോണ്ടൻ കുമാർ, died in the same area despite the heavier patrols. Within hours, Reporter TV said, a fourth man, തങ്കപ്പൻ, a native of ശാസ്താംകോട്ട, died in another part of Kollam. A fifth man, സുദർശൻ, aged 45, also died in the city. The channel described the five deaths as following one pattern, and said the person responsible had left nothing that pointed to him.
Reporter TV did not give exact dates for the deaths after the first two. It placed the start of the series in June 2012 and the arrest in November of that year.
Little has been published about the five men beyond their names. What is recorded is that they were men without homes who slept outdoors in the city. One was in his sixties. One was 45. One had come to Kollam from ശാസ്താംകോട്ട. One slept outside the same shop so regularly that its owner could speak to his habits and tell the police that nobody had come to ask after him.
That last point recurred in later criticism of the case. People within the police force itself, according to Reporter TV, said the investigation had been handled loosely because none of the dead had anyone searching for them or pressing for answers.
It is not known what work the men had done, where they had lived before, or whether any of them had family who learned of their deaths. The man of about 65 who died first has not been named.
The police took Navas into custody around the time of the second death in 2012, Reporter TV said. While in custody he behaved like a man with a mental illness, and because of that behavior the police had him admitted to a mental health centre in Thiruvananthapuram.
Doctors at the centre put him through a series of tests. They found that he did not behave like a mentally ill person while in their care and that he had no health problems, and they discharged him.
According to the police account relayed by the channel, deaths that occurred after his discharge were what led investigators to settle on him. When the police later contacted the centre to ask about the man they had brought in, they were told he had been released after his tests.
On November 2, 2012, a police team led by the then East Circle Inspector വി സുഗതൻ, with Sub Inspector ജി ഗോപകുമാർ and Senior Civil Police Officer പ്രസന്ന കുമാർ, arrested Navas in Kollam, Reporter TV reported.
Reporter TV described his habits: he went to bed around eight in the evening, woke near midnight and then went out into the city. The channel reported no link or quarrel between him and any of the dead men, and no motive.
By 2012 Navas was already known to the Kollam police. Reporter TV said that in 1996, when he was about 30, he was arrested on suspicion over the death of a man in the city, whom the channel named as രാജശേഖരൻ and described as a 65-year-old who had been sleeping in the open. The court acquitted him because there were no eyewitnesses. No one else is known to have been charged in that case.
In 2007 he was arrested again, this time over the death of a man the channel named as ഷമീർ. He was later released. Whether that case reached a trial, or how it ended in court, is not known.
Reporter TV itself cautioned that reliable details of both earlier cases are not available. Its description of the 1996 victim, a man of about 65 sleeping in the open in the city, is also close to its description of the first man who died in June 2012, and whether two separate deaths are meant has never been made clear. Nothing shows that the man who died in 2007 was sleeping outdoors.
Navas was born in 1966 in Kollam district, Reporter TV reported, adding that accounts of a troubled home and childhood had not been confirmed. His father died when he was young, and he became the main support of his mother and his sister.
The family spent about four years in Mumbai. There, according to the channel, he became addicted to drugs, and his mother died on the city's streets. He then returned to Kerala. At some point his sister went missing, and nothing has been heard of her since.
As a young man he used drugs and alcohol, the channel said. Nothing is known of any work he did or of any schooling.
After his arrest in November 2012, Navas was held as an undertrial prisoner in the central jail at പൂജപ്പുര in Thiruvananthapuram while the case against him was heard in the courts of Kollam. The police filed a chargesheet; its counts, the court in which he was tried and the dates of the hearings have not been made public.
His lawyer, അഡ്വ. ആനന്ദ് ബ്രഹ്മാനന്ദ്, argued in his defense that most of the dead men had been physically stronger than his client, Reporter TV said. The prosecution evidence, the witnesses and any forensic findings presented in court have not been made public.
In March 2019 the court acquitted Navas for lack of evidence, Reporter TV reported, and he walked out of the jail where he had been held as an undertrial. The judgment itself has not been published, and the channel did not quote from it.
Allegations followed, including from within the police, that mistakes in the investigation and gaps in the chargesheet had led to his release. Those who raised them, as the channel reported, said the inquiry had been handled carelessly because the dead men had no one to press their cases. No official response to that criticism has been reported, and no appeal against the acquittal has been reported.
In law, the outcome means that he stands acquitted of the 2012 deaths. The police case against him was never proved in court, and no other person has been reported charged over those deaths.
Reporter TV said in October 2024 that no one had gone looking for Navas after his release and that nobody knew where he was. He would by then have been close to 60, the channel said, and it was not known whether he was still alive or whether he was living under another name.
The public record of the case is thin and in places inconsistent. Reporter TV gave his age as about 30 in 1996, but in another passage it said he was 30 when he was arrested over the 2012 deaths. It said in its subtitle that five people died and in its body that about seven did, without listing the seven. It gave no exact dates for most of the 2012 deaths.
No court has made any finding about who caused any of the deaths. The 1996 case ended in acquittal for want of eyewitnesses; the 2007 case is reported only as an arrest followed by release; and the five deaths of 2012 ended in an acquittal for lack of evidence. The police view that a single man was responsible for the 2012 deaths remains the view of the investigators, and the court did not accept it.
The deaths of the five men of 2012 therefore remain unresolved in law. No other suspect has been reported, and there is no report that the police reopened any of the cases after the acquittal.
1966: Navas is born in Kollam district, Kerala (Reporter TV).
Before 1996: the family spends about four years in Mumbai; his mother dies there; he returns to Kerala (Reporter TV; years not given).
1996: arrested on suspicion over the death of രാജശേഖരൻ in Kollam; acquitted because there were no eyewitnesses (date of acquittal not reported).
2007: arrested over the death of ഷമീർ; later released (outcome in court not reported).
June 2012: the first of five deaths of men sleeping outdoors in Kollam; അപ്പുക്കുട്ടൻ ആചാരി dies the next day.
2012: the police take Navas into custody; he is admitted to a mental health centre in Thiruvananthapuram, found to have no mental illness and discharged.
2012: ബോണ്ടൻ കുമാർ, തങ്കപ്പൻ and സുദർശൻ (45) die in Kollam.
November 2, 2012: arrested in Kollam by a team led by East Circle Inspector വി സുഗതൻ.
2012 to 2019: held as an undertrial prisoner in the central jail at പൂജപ്പുര, Thiruvananthapuram; tried in Kollam.
March 2019: acquitted for lack of evidence.
October 30, 2024: Reporter TV reports that his whereabouts are unknown.