It all began on the fateful night of April 24, when Om Bahadur, the guard at Kodanad estate in Nilgiris, had to be more vigilant unlike never before. Bahadur was at gate No 9 at the sprawling, exquisite Kodanad Tea Estate, the preferred hill retreat of former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa.
At around 1.30 am, when Bahadur encountered a few men trying to trespass and burgle the bungalow, he chased them. Unfortunately, Bahadur was killed by the strangers.
His colleague, Krishna Bahadur, who also fought the burglars, was severely injured. He suffered cut in his hands and his fingers got chopped during the fight. Krishna Bahadur, however, survived to narrate the story of the brutal attack.
Krishna was tied up and assaulted by the men as he noticed them kill Om Bahadur. The murderers, then, escaped in an SUV.
According to police sources, a lot of incriminating documents of shares, bonds and properties worth around Rs 80,000 crore were looted from the bungalow. Though sources confirm the loot from the estate, they could not ascertain the worth of the materials taken away by the strangers.
The initial investigation the day after the murder on April 25 revealed that the strangers had looked for some specific documents and searched only a few rooms in the estate, including those of Jayalalithaa and her aide Sasikala. “We don’t know what exactly happened. But we heard that Amma's and Chinnamma’s rooms were specifically searched by the burglars,” says Latchumi Saravanakumar, one of the employees at the estate.
The estate is currently managed by a person called Natarajan who hails from Sasikala’s Thanjavur district.
“Some valuables have been stolen. The thieves have looted jewellery,” say police sources investigating the case.
After continuous investigations for the past six days, the police finally zeroed in on the suspects, with the help of CCTV footage that revealed the registration number of the SUV in which the murderers came and escaped.
In fact, a few hand gloves and the fake number plate used by the looters were seen dumped on the outskirts of Kodanad, near Kothagiri. Police sources also say that the SUV was seen plying through the slopes of Kothagiri on April 23, and there were at least five persons in the car.
However, by April 27, another team of police officials investigating the case suspected the involvement of a man from Kerala. Sayan, alias Shyam, who was part of the 10-member gang that murdered Om Bahadur is the mastermind, according to police reports.
He hails from Thrissur in Kerala. After investigating Sayan's links, the police found the involvement of seven other men from Thrissur and Mallapuram in the case. All the seven, part of the ten-member gang, are being interrogated by the police. Of these, seven—three named Satheesan, Deepu and Santhosh—are said to be the executors.
After interrogating these seven for hours, the police got suspicious of Jayalalithaa’s former driver Kanagaraj. It is said Kanagaraj, who knows the sketch of the Kodanad estate, helped to carry out the loot.
“It is a planned loot,” says one of the police inspectors investigating the case. In fact, the police, after zeroing in on the murderers, found how it was a well-planned crime and how driver Kanagaraj was involved in the loot.
A few years ago, Jayalalithaa had sacked him from the job as he was trying to misuse his position and her name. But Kanagaraj always had the hatchet within him. As he was the driver who had access to most of the places that Jayalalithaa visited, he was quite familiar with the details of the bungalow. In fact, his knowledge helped him easily plot the loot with Sayan.
However, in a sudden turn of events, when the police found the involvement of Kanagaraj and his plans, he mysteriously died in a road accident on April 28 (Friday) at Attur near Salem. He died on the spot at around 8.30 pm, just hours after he was on the he police's radar.
This was soon to be followed by the accident of Sayan, the suspected mastermind. He, along with his wife and daughter Neethu, was travelling in his car from Thrissur to Palakkad in Kerala when they met with an accident.
While his wife and daughter died on the spot, Sayan is critical and battling life at the GKNM hospital. Sources say the judicial magistrate took a declaration statement from Sayan at the hospital. The police is likely to take custody of all the seven suspected involved in the murder and loot for further investigation.
Interestingly, the sprawling 942-acre Kodanad estate is one of the biggest properties owned by Jayalalithaa-Sasikala duo. It was more of a chamber of secret where sources say the two women maintained most of their important documents.
The property, though perceived as Jayalalithaa's, is owned by a partnership firm called Kodanad Tea Estate, which has the two women and Sasikala’s sister-in-law Elavarasi as partners.
The estate is worth around Rs 942 crore and the tea manufactured here is one of the best qualities from the Blue Mountains. It has a scenic 10-acre lake inside where Jayalalithaa used to go for a boat ride whenever she was there, apart from the 10-acre beautiful flori-culture farm, where several varieties of orchids bloom everyday.
