In a surprising incident, an 11-year-old boy reportedly turned a soothsayer and helped identify thief for the police here on Thursday night.

Marimuthu, who runs a silver chain-making unit at his house in Karuppanur near Sivathapuram, told reporters at the collectorate, that on Thursday while he was at work took a break and went inside his house on some reason. When he returned after two minutes, he was shocked to find silver chains weighing around 2 kg missing. He launched a search in his area to find the culprits, but in vain.

Later in the evening Marimuthu told his younger brother’s son Prakash (11) about the theft of chains. Suddenly, Prakash, as if driven by divine powers, started dancing and vowed to identify the thief. Then the boy started to walk in the village around 4 pm and huge crowd of locals followed.

The boy, who went to various places such as Sivathapuram, Panankadu and in Kandampatti, after a six-hour walk finally entered the house of Sanjay,who was also engaged in silver business, in Panankadu and sat there.

Following this, when Marimuthu and other residents explained the entire issue to Sanjay, the latter told them in the evening, an unidentified person came and asked to melt some silver chains and make them into one bar. But Sanjay, who grew suspicious of the stranger, refused to do so and the new person left the spot, he added.

Later Sanjay identified the stranger through the footages in the CCTV camera, which was fixed at his home. Though the culprit appeared to be a local resident, his face could not seen clearly in the clip.

Prakash had identified some silver chain burglars in the past too in the same way. This time too he found the thief, Marimuthu said.

Hercule parrot! Indian murderer is caught after victim's pet bird identifies the killer

Newspaper editor came home to find his wife and dog had been murdered
Parrot screeched every time he heard the name of dead woman's nephew
When police brought him for questioning, he confessed to the murders

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Pet detective: Police were led to a man who murdered an Indian journalist's wife by the family's parrot who screeched every time he heard the name of the suspect (file picture)

An Indian journalist managed to catch the person who killed his wife after getting a tip off - from their pet parrot.

Vijay Sharma, the editor of a Hindi daily newspaper in Agra in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, returned home to find both his wife Neelam Sharma, 45, and her pet dog, had been murdered.

The only survivor was Hercule the pet parrot, but he had been stunned into silence after witnessing the horrific killings.

The house had also been ransacked and jewellery and cash stolen.

Police had no obvious leads, but that changed when Vijay's nephew Ashutosh visited their house after the murder.

Mr Sharma said: 'The parrot that was unusually quiet suddenly started shrieking and flapping around the cage.

'It was clearly distressed about something and only calmed down when Ashutosh left.

'Then when I spoke to other people, every time I mentioned Ashutosh's name the parrot would start screeching.

'This made me really suspicious and I decided to call the police.'

Police spokesman Shalabh Mathur said they looked at Ashutosh's phone records after being told he may be a suspect and found cause to bring him in for questioning.

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Mr Mathur said: 'He said that he had gone together with a friend to his uncle's house with the intent of stealing and have been surprised by his aunt, who they had killed because they were worried she would have identified them to police. They had then robbed the place before fleeing.

'He admitted he had also killed the dog worried that it could be used in an identity parade against him, but had not thought about killing the parrot which had been silent in its cage.'