Thiruvananthapuram: The case pertaining to the death of seven members of the Koodathil family at Karamana in Thiruvananthapuram under suspicious circumstances has taken a decisive turn. According to forensic examination report, Jayamadhavan Nair, the last person who died in the family was murdered.
Jayamadhavan was found dead on April 2, 2017. The district Crime Branch has slapped murder charges in the case.
Seven members of Koodathil family including Gopinathan Nair, his wife Sumukhiamma, children Jaysree, Jai Balakrishnan and Jaiprakash, Gopinathan Nair's elder brothers Narayana Pillai and Velu Pillai's children Jaymadhavan and Unnikrishnan Nair were found dead under mysterious circumstances at different intervals.
The Koodathil family owns buildings and land worth crores of rupees in the city. The district crime branch had started the investigation on a complaint filed by Velu Pillai's daughter-in-law Prasanna Kumari and a local resident Anil Kumar. The investigation team probed whether the caretaker had any involvement in the murder.
The postmortem report and report of viscera examination had revealed that the reason for Jayamadhavan Nair's death was head injury. There was blood clot on the face and a forensic examination was conducted to find out as to how these injuries were sustained by the victim.
The forensic team had also collected a piece of wood with blood marks, from the spot.
Though Jaiprakash who was the brother of the deceased , had died after vomiting blood, no post-mortem examination was conducted on his body.
The caretaker of the family Raveendran Nair had given a statement that on April 2, 2017 when he came to the house he found Jaimadhavan Nair lying on the bed. Soon he took him to the Medical College Hospital in an auto rickshaw. The housemaid Leela had also accompanied him to the hospital.
The doctors at the hospital declared Jaimadhavan Nair dead .
After coming to know about Jaimadhavan's death, Raveendran Nair and Leela reached Karamana police station.
Raveendran Nair had given a statement that he went to the police station to give the statement. However, in her statement Leela said she did not go to the police station. Since the body was kept for postmortem examination, Raveendran Nair had asked Leela to hire an auto and go home.
The Investigation agency examined the inconsistencies and contradictions in their statements.
The auto driver who had earlier said that he took Jaimadhavan Nair to hospital later changed his statement. Later, he changed his statement and said he didn't go to the hospital. Raveendran Nair had promised to give Rs 5 lakh and that's why he gave te wrong statement.
His second statement which was recorded on video was not examined by the investigation team. An auto driver staying in the neighbourhood used to park his vehicle at the Koodathil house.
In a statement, Prassanakumari said that instead of calling the autodriver who parked the vehicle on the premises, Raveendran Nair hired another auto from outside with the help of another caretaker Sahadevan, for taking Jaimadhavan to medical college. This raises grave suspicion, she added.
The new investigation team examined this statement in detail.
