Man accused in murder of guard at Jaya estate killed in accident

SECOND ACCUSED CRITICAL IN SEPARATE MISHAP

DAYS AFTER a security guard at late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s bungalow in Kodanad was murdered by a gang during a robbery attempt, two accused who were on the run met with separate road accidents on Friday night and Saturday morning, leaving one of them seriously injured and the other dead.

Kanagaraj, a native of Edappadi who used to be Jayalalithaa’s driver during her visits to Kodanadu, near Kothagiri in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu, was reported dead in an accident early Saturday morning. “Preliminary inquiry shows that it was a road accident but we are probing further because Kanagaraj was one of the accused in the security guard’s murder,” a senior police officer said.

The second accused, Sayan, a native of Kerala, met with an accident near Palakkad in Kerala on Friday night. Sayan’s wife and child died in the accident; he remains critical.

The officer said 12 people were suspected to be involved in the robbery attempt at Kodanad Estate and the murder of Om Bahadur, 50, the security guard. The crime took place in the early hours of Monday. Another guard was left injured in the attack.

“We have arrested six people. All of them are from Kerala,” an officer said.

The police said as Om Bahadur foiled their robbery attempt by raising an alarm, the assailants tied up his hands, legs and mouth and assaulted him. Then they left him hanging upside down from a tree near the bungalow’s gate, the police said.

“He died soon,” an officer who is part of the investigating team said.

The police and people close to V K Sasikala’s family are clueless whether there was a motive bigger than just robbery. “Kodanad had no valuables of Jayalalithaa. Her valuables were always kept at Siruthavur bungalow near Chennai, which has police protection,” said a person close to Sasikala’s family.

Jayalalithaa and her longtime aide Sasikala, convicted in a disproportionate assets case and now in jail, had bought the 900acre Kodanad Estate nearly two decades ago. They went there at least twice a year. Natarajan, a relative of Sasikala, used to take care of the bungalow. After the AIADMK chief’s death, and ever since the internal crisis in the party has emerged, little attention has been paid to the bungalow’s security.

PTI A student throws stones on security forces during a protest in Srinagar on Saturday.

PTI The school in Khunti district of Jharkhand on Saturday.