Jayalalitha’s ex-driver killed in accident

Ooty: Kanagaraj, the ex-driver of late chief minister Jayalalitha, who died in a road accident near Salem on Saturday morning, was found to be the main suspect in the sensational break-in of her Kodanad estate bungalow and the murder of a watchman there on the night of April 23, according to Nilgiris SP Murali Rambha.

Addressing the media here Saturday evening, the SP refused to comment on the allegations that Kanagaraj was killed by someone to cover up the Kodanad break-in. He said police teams have been rushed to Salem to clear doubts. He has also sent a team to Palakkad, where Kanagaraj’s accomplice in the Kodanad crime, a Coimbatore resident by name Sayan, is hospitalised after a truck hit the car in which he was travelling to Kerala with wife and daughter. Both died on the spot in the mishap.

With the two main suspects in the Kodanad crime getting involved in serious road mishaps around the same time Saturday morning—Kanagaraj at Salem and Sayan near Palakkad—doubts have erupted if someone had planned their elimination to hush up something relating to the Kodanad crime. SP Rambha said he would not be able to comment on such speculations until his probe teams returned from Salem and Palakkad with complete information. Until then, police would proceed on the assumption that they were road accidents.

The SP said four persons have been held and hunt is on for five more. All the ten hail from Kerala. He said after being sacked from Kodanad estate, Kanagaraj shifted to Chennai where he married and settled down in Vadapalani working as a driver. He teamed up with Sayan working in a bakery at Coimbatore and ten others from Kerala to plan the break-in into the Kodanad estate. He told them that Jayalalithaa and Sasikala had stashed away huge amount of money in the bungalow and he knew for sure that there were no CCTV cameras or dogs, so it would be easy to break into the bunglow.