Chennai: The special team constituted to investigate the Kodanad murder-cum-heist case has accelerated the investigation after a Madras High Court directive.
The court had asked the police to complete the investigation immediately after an accused in the case Manoj Valayar filed a petition before the court that the police were dragging the case in the name of fresh probes.
The Kodanad estate which was jointly owned by the late Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and her close aide V.K. Sasikala was in the news after the murder of a security guard and burglary in the bungalow there on April 23-24, 2017. The incident occurred after Jayalalithaa passed away in December 2016 and Sasikala was incarcerated in Bengaluru central prison in February 2017.
During the burglary a security guard, Om Bahadur was hacked to death and another security guard, Krishna Thapa suffered grievous injuries. Five days after the burglary, the main accused in the case, Kanakarajan who was the driver of Jayalalithaa met with an accident on the Salem-Chennai highway and died instantly. Another accused Sayen met with an accident in Palakkad, Kerala, on the same day while he was travelling in a car along with his family. A truck rammed into the car and his wife and daughter died in the accident, however, Sayan escaped with injuries.
A few months after these incidents, the computer operator of the estate, Dinesh Kumar, committed suicide at his residence. The Kodanad estate case turned murkier after these back-to-back deaths. The then opposition DMK had announced that there were some influential people behind the incident and that if voted to power it would throw light on all the angles connected to the murder and heist.
Immediately after assuming office DMK chief minister Stalin constituted a special police team in March 2021 to conduct a fresh investigation. The petitioner Manoj said that the examination of 41 prosecution witnesses was over by March 2021. He added that since August 2021, the trial court has been regularly adjourning the case at the request of the police even though there was no progress in the investigation.
Justice V. Sivaganam of the Madras High Court directed the police to complete the investigation. Police sources told IANS that there were several fresh developments in the case, and they would report to the court on the progress in the case.
(IANS)
