‘When will you complete probe into Kodanad case’

Udhagamandalam: “When are you going to complete inquiry into the Kodanad murder-cum-heist case?” the Nilgiris district judge asked the CB-CID police on Friday. He also said the state agency could not keep him in the dark.“I am not fixing any stipulated time frame, but when are you going to complete the inquiry? You cannot keep me in the dark,” said district judge A Abdul Khader.He made the remarks after the CB-CID filed a four-page ‘interim status report’ of the case.The contents were neither argued before the court nor revealed to the media. Counsel for an accused told TOI that even they were not entitled to a copy of the report.After the report was filed, the judge made a long adjournment of the case by posting it to October 13 for further hearing.The case relates to the daring murder cum burglary of former chief minister Jayalalithaa’s summer retreat, the Kodanadu Estate in the Nilgiris during the intervening night of April 23-24 in 2017. Five days after the incident, a prime suspect, C Kanagaraj, was killed in a ‘road accident’ in Salem on April 28.Now there is a renewed interest in the case, as Kanagaraj’s elder brother C Dhanabal has claimed that his brother’s death was not an accident, and that it was a premeditated murder. Dhanabal’s wife, however, gave counter-interviews saying his views should not be taken seriously as he had been ‘influenced.’The investigation of the case was handed over to CB-CID in October 2022.
Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India. Don't miss daily games like Crossword, Sudoku, and Mini Crossword.