Thiruvananthapuram: The plot appears to thicken around the death of violinist Balabhaskar following contradictory statements regarding the CCTV visuals that likely show the musician's visit to a juice stall at Pallimukku in Kollam shortly before the accident.
The hard disc from the juice parlour, which had been submitted to the court, has been recovered and sent for forensic analysis to determine whether the data in the drive was manipulated, the police said.
The Crime Branch team investigating the accident revealed that Prakash Thampy, a close friend of Balabhaskar who was recently arrested in connection with smuggling of gold, had earlier admitted that he had taken away the hard disc of the CCTV installed in the juice parlour where the musician and his family members stopped by to fetch juice before they met with the fatal accident.
He had told the interrogators that he checked the footage to find out who drove the vehicle at the time of the accident after Balabhaskar’s wife Lakshmi refuted chauffer Arjun’s statement that the former was at the wheel when the accident occurred. The hard disc was later returned to Shamnad, the shop owner, as it carried no conclusive evidence, he reportedly told the sleuths.
Shop owner rejects police version
However, Shamnad dismissed the claim by the Crime Branch team saying that he did not know Prakash Thampy and nobody had taken away the hard disc from his shop.
“It was DySP Harikrishnan who came here and collected the clippings two months ago. The CCTV unit has a retention capacity of 30 days. I have given the same statement to the Crime Branch as well,” he told the media on Friday.
Though the investigating team had examined the CCTV installed at a textile shop located opposite to the juice stall, they could not gather any evidence. According to police, the car in which Balabhaskar and his family were travelling stopped in front of the juice stall around 2 am. The owner of the textile outlet later informed the cops that the CCTV unit was not working due to technical glitches.
Lakshmi had earlier told the police that Balabhaskar was in the rear seat when the accident occurred. She and her daughter were in the front seat, and Arjun was at the wheel. The statement contradicted that given by Arjun, who had claimed that the musician himself was at the wheel when they met with the accident.
Crime Branch officials intended to question Arjun as part of the investigation on Friday. However, the officials received information that Arjun was in Assam. The family of Dr Raveendran with whom Balabhaskar reportedly had some financial dealings, told the investigators that their son Jishnu and Arjun had gone on a trip to the Himalayas.
The doctor is based in Palakkad.
Arjun was said to be recuperating from the injuries suffered during the car crash.
Car was over-speeding, show visuals
Meanwhile, the CCTV visuals collected by the Crime Branch team with the help of the Motor Vehicles Department showed that the car in which the family was travelling was over-speeding before it met with the accident. The family is said to have covered 231 km in just 2.37 hours.
According to the police, they started the journey at 11.30 pm on September 24 after having dinner from the house of a relative of Dr Raveendran at Palakkad. Arjun was at the wheel. The image of the car was caught in a speed camera installed at Chalakkudy at 1.08 am. It was then going at a speed of 94 kmph.
The vehicle met with the accident at Pallippuram at 3.45 am, which means it took about 2.37 hours to cover a distance of 231 km. The vehicle had been fined six times for over-speeding in the past one year, MVD data revealed.
The accident took place in the early hours of September 25. While Balabhaskar and his wife Lakshmi were rushed to a nearby hospital, their two-year-old daughter Tejasvini died on the spot. Balabhaskar died at the hospital on October 2.