Thiruvananthapuram, Aug. 29 -- One winter morning in January 1984, Sukumara Kurup strangled a man who bore some resemblance to him, burnt his body near a field in Alappuzha and faked his own death - in the process committing one of India's first insurance crimes.

The 38-year-old then vanished.

For over four decades, Kurup's proven brutality and mythical escape became the subject of countless stories, movies, television plots and reams of neighbourhood gossip. The police believed it futile to search for the elusive fugitive.

Until now.

This week, a claim by a police officer who investigated the case in 2017 that Kurup was still alive in Brunei, and a photo of a hirsute man with neatly combed hair released by a Malayalam channel, kicked...