Palaniswami likely to be questioned in Kodanad murder-heist case

CHENNAI: A special team of the Tamil Nadu Police is likely to question former Chief Minister K. Palaniswami in the Kodanad murder and heist case, sources said.

The sources told IANS that the date of questioning is yet to be finalised by the team after corroborating the evidence received in the earlier investigation.

V.K. Sasikala, former interim general secretary of the AIADMK, was quizzed for 10 hours at her T-Nagar residence on Thursday and Friday.

After the interrogation, Sasikala called upon stringent action against the perpetrators of the crime.

The incident at the 906-acre Kodanad estate located in the Nilgiris district, occurred on April 23, 2017, four months after the passing away of late Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

Sasikala was then lodged at the Bengaluru central prison in a case related to disproportionate assets case.

During the burglary an estate guard, Om Bahadhur was killed and another guard Krishna Thapa was severely beaten and his hands and feet tied. The gang, according to police, had decamped with 10 watches and one crystal memento worth Rs 42,000.

Five days after the incident in a sudden turn of events, the first accused Kanagaraj, who was the former driver of Jayalalithaa, died in a road accident. On the same day, the second accused Sayan had an accident at Palakkad in Kerala.

In the accident, Sayan survived with injuries, but his wife and daughter died.

Three months later a computer operator of the Kodanad estate, Dinesh Kumar committed suicide at his home.

Sayan and two others had petitioned the Madras High Court for a reinvestigation into the case and the Tamil Nadu government constituted a special team to probe the case.

The accused had requested the court to probe the role of Sasikala and Palaniswami in the case.