Thiruvananthapuram: Even as doubts are raised over the untimely death of noted young violinist Balabhaskar, artist Kalabhavan Sobi failed a polygraph test held to ascertain his sensational claim that he had seen a shady character at the accident site.
The person, who Sobi claimed to have seen at the site of the accident, was found to be in Bengaluru at that time.
Earlier Sobi had told the investigators that he had seen Rubin Thomas, an alleged member of a gold smuggling racket,
near the accident site. The statement that Balabhaskar's car was attacked before it met with the accident was also found to be false.
Moreover, the statement of driver Arjun that Balabhaskar was behind the wheels at the time of the accident has also been found to be untrue.
The car in which Balabhaskar and his family were travelling, had met with the accident on a section of the National Highway near Pallippuram on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram on September 25, 2018. Balabahskar and his daughter died in the accident while his wife Lakshmi sustained serious injuries.
Sobi had deposed to investigators that he saw Balabhaskar's vehicle being attacked before the mishap while he was driving along the same stretch on that day. The CBI says more clarity can be had on this statement through a narco-analysis test.
The relatives of the violinist became suspicious about the mishap after Prakashan Thampi and Vishnu, who were the organisers of Balabhaskar's musical events, were booked in a case pertaining to gold smuggling at the Trivandrum International Airport.
Further fuelling the suspicion in their minds, Arjun who was with Balabhaskar at the time of the accident had retracted from his statement that he was behind the wheels at that time.
Earlier the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence had showed some photographs of gold smugglers to Sobi and he had identified one person.
The DRI had carried out a probe after confirming that some people found at the accident site were linked to gold smuggling. CBI is also going ahead with the probe based on Sobi's statement.
