Kozhikode (Kerala) | For nearly four decades, Muhammadali lived with a secret he could no longer bear.

On Friday, he walked into a police station at Vengara in Malappuram district and calmly confessed to a crime he says he committed as a teenager in 1986—the killing of a man whose name no one ever knew.

The incident, he told officers, took place when he was just 14.

Muhammadali had been working on the property of a man named Devassya in the quiet village of Koodaranji, which is under Thiruvambady police station limits in Kozhikode district.

One day, he said, a man tried to harass him. In self-defence, he kicked the man, who fell into a nearby stream, police said, revealing his confession.

Panicked, the teenager fled the scene. Two days later, he returned to find the man's lifeless body still in the water. Fearing the worst, he stayed silent, according to Muhammadali's account to the police.

At the time, the police treated the death as natural.

Locals then had said the man was known to have epilepsy, and no one came forward to identify the body. With no leads, the case quietly faded into the past.

But for Muhammadali, it never truly went away.

Now in his fifties, he told police the burden of guilt became too heavy to carry—especially after personal tragedies struck his own family.

His elder son died, and his younger son was seriously injured in an accident. It was then, he said, that he realised he had to come clean.

He informed the police that he couldn't sleep after the tragedy struck his family.

Investigators took his confession seriously. He led them back to the scene and showed them the spot where the body had once lain.

Now, a police team led by Thiruvambady Station House Officer K Prajeesh is combing through old files and newspaper reports in a bid to uncover the victim's identity.

So far, the only surviving record is a short news report from December 5, 1986. It reads: "Koodaranji: Body of a young man found in a small stream behind Mission Hospital. Estimated age: 20." Police have now filed a murder case against Muhammadali, who is in judicial custody.