Seer booked for another murderous assault

(##include msid=43376741,type=11##) Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi was booked inanother case on Tuesday relating to a murderous assault on a former muttofficial G Radhakrishnan.Police also claim to have enough evidencefor filing a third criminal case against the Seer. The attempt tomurder case relates to an attack on Radhakrishnan, a detractor of the pontiff,his wife and an attendant on September 20, 2002, at his residence in Mandaveliin Chennai.Radhakrishnan had allegedly fallen out with muttauthorities and was sacked from his job.According to the police, thenew criminal cases were based on confessions of the 18 people in custody inconnection with the murder of Sankara Raman, a former accountant of the mutt, inKanchipuram on September 3.The Shankaracharya was arrested onNovember 11 in connection with Sankara Raman''s murder and is currently injudicial custody.Some of the people in custody have reportedlyconfessed to their involvement in a murderous assault onRadhakrishnan.The police are also investigating a third assaultallegedly at the behest of the pontiff on another dissident, T Madhavan, atemple priest.Mysterious death of mutt studentsMeanwhile, a family in Keralahas demanded a probe into the death of two students of the mutt.Thefamily told the media it suspected foul play in the death of KesavanNamboothiri, who was studying in the mutt''s vedic institute, in1985.The mutt has said the Kesavan Namboothiri died of electrocutionin "an accident".The body of his close friend and classmate SankaranNamboothiri was found a few weeks later on a railway track near Thrissur inKerala."I now suspect that my brother died of some foul play atKanchipuram. I cannot simply believe that he died of an electric shock, as theMutt officials said," Narayanan Namboothiri, Kesavan''s brother, toldreporters.He said he had sent a fax message to Tamil Nadu ChiefMinister J Jayalalitha urging an investigation into the twodeaths.Jayendra Saraswathi was sent to Vellore central prison injudicial custody after his three-day police remand ended Monday. His judicialcustody ends on November 26.