Guard identifies accused in Kodanad murder

On April 24, an unidentified gang murdered one of the night watchmen, Om Bahadur, of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s Kodanad Estate near Kotagiri, in The Nilgiris district.  They also assaulted fellow watchman Krishna Thaba Bahadur (37) before burgling the bungalow. Police claimed that 11 persons were involved in the crime and arrested eight of them. 

One of the prime accused C Kanagaraj (36) was reportedly killed in an accident, at Attur in Salem district. Another prime accused Sayan (35) was badly injured in an accident and was undergoing treatment. 

While a search is on for one more accused, The Nilgiris district police conducted an parade to identify the accused at the Coimbatore prison in the presence of the Kotagiri Judicial Magistrate, Tamilselvan, on Friday. 

Meanwhile, accused Santhosh Sami, Satheesan, Udhayakumar, Theebu and Manoj Samiyar, were produced on Friday before the Kotagiri JM for remand extension. Their judicial custody was extended till May 26, after which they were sent back to the Coimbatore jail.

Meanwhile, in a related development, the case pertaining to the mysterious death of government contractor KR Subramaniam (58) of Namakkal at his farmhouse has been transferred to the Crime Branch – Crime Investigation Division (CB-CID) by the Director General of Police (DGP) TK Rajendran on Friday. Subramaniam, who was a close aide of Health Minister C Vijaya Baskar was found dead in his farm house on May 8. A letter written by him a day before his death was also reportedly doing the rounds in the social media. He had written letters to a couple of other persons and that efforts were underway to retrieve a copy of the same. At this juncture, the case has been transferred to the CB-CID.