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Seer case accused turns hostile

 

A main accused told the court that he was tortured by the police and

forced to falsely implicate the Shankaracharya.

 

CHENNAI, DHNS:

 

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov252004/i2.asp?

headline=Accused~turns~hostile

 

The Sankararaman murder case took a dramatic turn on Wednesday with

a key accused telling a magistrate's court in Kancheepuram that he

was forced by the police to implicate the Shankaracharya of the

Kanchi Mutt, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, in the case.

 

This statement was made before first class judicial magistrate G

Uttamaraj when Kathiravan, upon whose confession the police arrested

the seer on Nov 11 last, was produced for extension of judicial

remand. Kathivaran told the court that the statement made by him

before another magistrate, Damodaran, under Sec 164 of the CrPC on

Nov 19 was given under duress from the police.

 

(Since a confession made to the police has little value as evidence,

the accused are asked to make a statement before a magistrate to

show that it is voluntary.)

Kathiravan further said that he was secured on Nov 3 itself but the

arrest was not shown on record. He was kept in illegal custody till

Nov 10 when he was produced before a magistrate for remand.

 

During this "illegal custody", he said, he was interrogated at

Uthandi on the East Coast Road between Chennai and Mahabalipuram,

and at Hotel Paramount in Sriperumpudur.

 

Kathiravan's about-turn is a blow to the police, according to whom

he acted as a contact person between the seer and Appu, the

absconding leader of the killer gang allegedly hired by the acharya

to eliminate Mr Sankararaman inside the Varadaraja Perumal temple on

Sept 3. Another accused, Chinna alias Rajni, who was in the gang of

assailants who allegedly hacked Mr Sankararaman to death, also told

the magistrate that he was tortured by the police. After recording

the statements of the two accused, the magistrate extended their

judicial remand till Dec 8.

 

Police also produced Ambi alias Ambikapathi, yet another accused who

surrendered before a magistrate in Alandur . Mr Uttamaraj remanded

him to police custody for three days against the five days sought by

the police.In another development, 23rd Chennai Metropolitan

Magistrate Uma Maheswari, who issued the prisoner-on-transfer

warrant to the police for arresting the seer in the second case

relating to the assault on a mutt devotee, Mr Radhakrishnan, here in

September 2002, on Wednesday allowed the police to produce the seer

in court on Friday.