Chennai, June 29 (BPNS)
A special team of the Tamil Nadu police which is investigating the Kodanad estate murder and heist case questioned late Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa’s driver Kannan on Wednesday. Sources in the police told BPNS that he was quizzed for several hours on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Kannan while working with Jayalalithaa as her driver had access to the Kodanad summer bungalow and estate owned by the former Chief Minister and her aide, V.K. Sasikala.
It may be noted that after the death of Jayalalithaa in December 2016 and the arrest of V.K. Sasikala in February 2017, a group of men had barged into the Kodanad estate bungalow on the night of April 23rd and 24. During the dacoity, a guard at the estate, Om Bahadhur was killed with his neck slit and the other guard Krishna Thapa was grievously injured.
According to the police, the conspiracy to loot the Kodanad estate bungalow was hatched by another driver of the late Chief Minister, Kanagaraj. He made believe his accomplices that huge money to the tune of crores was parked at the estate bungalow and then conducted the heist.
Five days after the dacoity at the Kodanad estate bungalow, Kanagaraj was run over by a moving vehicle on the Salem, Chennai highway while he was riding a two-wheeler. Another accomplice in the heist, K.V. Sayan who was at his native place, Palakkad met with an accident on the same day when a truck barged into the car he was driving. While Sayan escaped unhurt, his wife and daughter died instantly. A few months after the heist, the computer operator of the Kodanad estate, Dileep Kumar committed suicide at his residence.
The Kodanad estate heist and murder is probed again after the DMK government assumed office constituting a special investigation team. The DMK president M.K. Stalin during the campaign for the 2021 assembly elections had said that if DMK was elected to power, his government would conduct a fresh investigation and true to his words constituted a special team after he became Chief Minister in 2021 May.
