More setbacks for ADMK...How the latest action from TN Police shocked EPS?

In what would pour more setbacks for the ADMK in its battle to impasse the probe into the Kodanad heist and murder case, the Tamil Nadu police had begun the drive of reinvestigating what had been the mysterious murders. According to reports, the Nilgiris police department had started to investigate the death of a 29-year-old computed operator, working at the Kodanad estate, who committed suicide days after the robbery has happened.

Since the change of power in the state, the DMK government has been pacing up the legal proceedings into the Kodanad heist and murder case that has happened in April 2017, when ADMK's Edappadi Palaniswami was the Chief Minister. Kodanad estate belonged to J Jayalalithaa and it sits on a hilly district of Nilgiris. It was a palatial bungalow where Jayalalithaa would have a retreat. Jayalalithaa had passed away in December 2016 and in April 2017, four months after her demise, a mob had executed a robbery in her estate in Kodanad at night hours.

The robbers had killed a security guard before entering the premises of the bungalow and it was alleged that they had heisted several valuables and documents from Jayalalithaa's room. The state was shocked to learn about the robbery when it came to light and a slew of unexpected events were unfolded after the robbery. Kanagaraj, who was a car driver for Jayalalithaa and one of the prime suspects in the case, had died in a road accident in Salem, days after the heist and another suspect Sayan had also met with an accident in Kerala in which his wife and daughter had died while he escaped with injuries.

While these mysterious mishaps had fueled more scepticism behind such accidents, 29-year-old Dinesh Kumar had committed suicide, nearly two months after the heist. Dinesh Kumar was a resident of Naduhatty in the Nilgiris and was working as a computer operator at the Kodanad estate. At the time of death, Dinesh was on leave due to health reasons. These back to back deaths had stirred outrage across the state as these five deaths - security guard Om Bahadur, Kanagaraj, Sayan's wife and children, and Dinesh Kumar had one thing in common - they were either connected or attached to the Kodanad estate and when the robbery had happened.

These five deaths had occurred with two months of the incident which sparked a claim that these could be homicides. However, the matter didn't go further during the ADMK regime and in 2019, one of the prime suspects of the case, Sayan had revealed that the robbery and murder had happened under the instruction of the then Chief Minister Edappadi Palansiwami. Several reports had also claimed that the ADMK leaders had masterminded the heist and were behind the deaths. When the DMK came to power, the MK Stalin government had unearthed the case and began further investigations. 

Edappadi Palaniswami had said that the DMK government was trying to trap him in the case and the ADMK had unfolded a legal battle to stop the investigations. However, both the Madras High Court and Supreme Court had given a huge setback for ADMK and for Edappadi Palansiwami after permitting the Tamil Nadu police to reinvestigate the matter. Recently, the Tamil Nadu police had formed special teams to reinvestigate the five deaths and one team had rushed to Nepal, Om Bahadur's home country to inquiry with his relatives about his death. 

In line with that, the Nilgiris police have now begun to investigate the death of 29-year-old Dinesh Kumar. The police had then said that Dinesh, whose eyesight was failing, was depressed when he died by committing suicide in July 2017. The reports say that Dinesh Kumar had access to CCTV footage when the heist and murder had happened in the Kodanad estate. The police under the previous ADMK regime had closed the case of Dinesh Kumar's death as suicide. However, the police will now have to alter the FIR and as the investigations into the deaths are pacing up, Tamil Nadu would see exhumation of shocking revelations as the case is inching towards the climax. 

 

 

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