A day after a Mahila court in Coimbatore convicted nine men in the Pollachi sexual assault case and sentenced them to life imprisonment, all eyes have shifted towards the Kodanad heist cum murder case which turned into a sensation in 2017. The case relates to a heist and the murder of a security guard at former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa’s Kodanad estate bungalow located in the picturesque Nilgiris.
Answering questions from the scribes after inaugurating the houses for the mahouts at the Mudumalai elephant camp, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin reaffirmed his government’s commitment to justice in the Kodanad heist case. “I had assured the people of Tamil Nadu that the accused in the Pollachi sexual assault case would face the harshest punishment. That promise has been fulfilled. Similarly, the accused in the Kodanad case will be brought to justice soon,” he said.
While the Pollachi sexual assault case was handled by the CBI and the trial went on for six years, the Kodanad heist case is handled by the Crime Branch CID under Tamil Nadu’s home department. The case has been pending in Ooty district court for the past four years, without any progress from the prosecution. The prosecution apparently has not submitted any incriminating documents to bring the accused to the books.
The trial in the Ooty district court began after two of the accused in the case Sayan and Manoj sought the court to enquire former chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and Jayalalithaa’s aide V.K. Sasikala. However the CB-CID which is investigating the case doesn’t seem to have made any breakthrough in the case. Also, the case has been handled by more than three investigating officers since the DMK government came to power. While Sasikala was questioned in the case, the attempts to interrogate Palaniswami did not materialise as he was the former chief minister.
In February 2024, there was a major step forward in the case, when the investigation agency stumbled upon evidence after the phones used by the accused persons were sent to a government forensic laboratory for analysis. This was an attempt to get digital evidence of the planning and execution of the dacoity cum murder case. The investigation agency also informed the court that the Call Detail Records (CDR) of several phone numbers were obtained from the BSNL tapes as magnetic tapes were sent for forensic analysis. The agency had reportedly sent 10 magnetic tapes containing the detail call records of more than 30 persons to the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) at Gandhi Nagar in Gujarat. However the report is yet to be submitted in the court.
The first chargesheet in the case was filed in 2017 immediately after the heist cum murder during the then AIADMK regime against the accused in the case—Walayar Manoj, Sayan, Santhosh, Deepu, Satheesan, Udhyakumar, Jithin Joy, Jamsheer Ali, Manoj Sami and Bijin Kutty. Later an interim chargesheet was filed after the DMK government took charge.
