US woman seeks CB-CID probe into brother’s death

Chennai: Raising suspicion over the death of a 73-year-old American national who has been living in Tiruvannamalai since 2010, embracing Hinduism, his sister has approached the Madras high court.

Catherine Jean Roberts has alleged that her brother was duped of nearly Rs 20 lakh in the guise of getting permanent visa to stay in India and when he demanded the money back he was killed by fraudsters.

She wanted the high court to transfer the probe to CB-CID or any other independent agency.

Admitting the plea, Justice G K Ilanthiraiyan directed the inspector of Baluchetty Chatram police station to file a status report of the investigation and issued a further direction to the Kancheepuram superintendent of police to monitor the probe.

According to the petitioner, she along with her brother John Woodrow Roberts came to Tiruvannamalai inspired by Hindu philosophy and to embrace the religion in 2010. Since then the duo had been staying in the temple town.

Meanwhile, her brother became acquainted with S J Vignesh, who was working as a sales officer in a non-banking institution in Tiruvannamalai. Since Vignesh promised that he would arrange a permanent visa for John, he paid around Rs 20 lakh to Vignesh.

However, without making any arrangements to process the visa as promised, Vignesh fled to Dubai. Realising that he had been cheated, John hired a lawyer to get back the money from Vignesh.

On June 19, 2019 Vignesh returned to India and promised to give back the money. Within days, Vignesh telephoned John and asked him to come to Chennai to get the money. Once John reached Chennai, Vignesh took him to a secluded place and strangulated him to death.

Though, post mortem examination report opined that John had been attacked before his murder that too by more than one person, the local police investigating the murder closed the case without waiting for the report from forensic science laboratory, the petitioner alleged. Now, claiming that the petitioner has lost faith on the local police, her counsel Kanagaraj wanted the court to transfer the investigation to CB-CID or to any other independent agency and monitor the probe.