Kochi: Movies play a great role in entertaining and educating people, but on the flip side also inflict heavy damage on society.

Mohanlal starrer ‘Drishyam’ turned out to be an ‘inspiration’ to a few junkies to allegedly kill their pal Arjun Vidhyan (19) and try stay unsuspicious.

It, a result of poor parenting, also exposes the failure of the government in fighting drug menace.

Police struggled to find out missing Arjun even as the real culprits acted as if they too were pained by his vanishing.

The murder was a ‘tribute’ to Abin, brother of prime accused Nibin Judeson (20), on his first death anniversary on July 3.

Abin succumbed to injuries sustained while riding a two-wheeler near Kochi last year. Arjun, who was riding pillion, escaped with serious injuries. Nibin and his friends suspected that Arjun was instrumental in the death of Abin and they started plotting to kill him.

Nipin stayed in Arjun’s house a day before his murder to give an impression of his innocence. The next day he sent a teenager to bring Arjun to a secluded place near Nettoor in suburban Kochi, police said.

After murdering Arjun, they dropped his mobile phone in a lorry which was traced in Tamil Nadu.

They even killed a dog and put it near the place where Arjun’s body was buried in a marshy area to mislead people about the stench coming from Arjun’s corpse.

Arjun’s father Vidhyan lodged a man missing case and later filed a habeas corpus case as police struggled to locate him.

Vidhyan had told police about his son’s association with accused Nibin, Rony, Anandu and Ajith Kumar all in their late teens and early 20s.

But, the youth broke down during sustained questioning and admitted to committing the crime and showed police where they had dumped the body.

Youth in the State are falling prey to drugs posing a major threat to the society. The government is also finding it tough to bring an end to the menace.

Renuka Babu, a CPM panchayat member, told The Covai Post that the situation was really grim.

The excise department and police do carry out awareness campaigns which were not giving results. There were times when youth fronts of political parties used to campaign against drug abuse. Such things were not seen these days, she lamented.

Renuka, who is a member of the Kumblangi panchayat, close to the area where the incident occurred, said the panchayat would take up the issue of creating awareness at ward levels.