Nayana Surya’s death: Commissioner’s report flags grave lapses by police

Nayana Surya worked as an assistant director with the late filmmaker Lenin Rajendran for a decade. Photo Credit: Manorama Online

Thiruvananthapuram: A report by City Police Commissioner C H Nagaraju has pointed out grave lases by the police officers who were on duty at the time of the mysterious death of young film director Nayana Surya in 2019.

The commissioner’s report says that the police even failed to collect information from a female friend of Nayana who stayed with her for two weeks before her death, including the day before she was found dead. The police also failed to take statements from Nayana’s friends. All that the officers did was to mention the phone number of five of Nayana’s closest friends in the case file. No follow-up measures as carried out even in routine cases took place over Nayana’s death.

“There are no excuses for such errors,” says the Commissioner’s report.

The report submitted by the police team which earlier investigated the case before the court listed three reasons to close the case as suicide: Nayana had a particular psychiatric condition termed asphyxiophilia; she had dangerously low levels of blood sugar and suffered from depression.

However, the police did not attach any supporting documents to substantiate these premises. Senior police officers who examined the file recently feel that the officials who were in charge of the case had decided beforehand that Nayana’s death was a suicide and prepared the case file accordingly.

It was a Grade Sub-Inspector who had investigated the case. He has retired from service now. However, the Circle Inspector and other superior officers are still serving.

The other day, the Crime Branch was ordered to investigate the case again.

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