Kodanad dacoity-cum-murder: CB-CID seeks Interpol, NFSU Gandhinagar to expedite vital reports

The Crime Branch-CID (CB-CID) of the Tamil Nadu Police has approached the Interpol and the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU), Gandhinagar, Gujarat, for expediting two vital reports for its ongoing investigation into the dacoity-cum-murder at the estate bungalow of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa at Kodanad in the Nilgiris in 2017.

The CB-CID has approached the Interpol for immediate assistance in tracing the origin of multiple calls received by two prime accused — Jayalalithaa’s former driver C. Kanagaraj of Attur in Salem district and K.V. Sayan of Irinjalakuda in Kerala’s Thrissur district — from a seven-digit number after the crime on April 27 and 28, 2017.

Tracing the origin of the calls — made through Voice over Internet Protocol — is vital for the Special Investigation Team of the CB-CID to proceed further with the probe.

Sources privy to the development said the CB-CID wrote a week ago to the Interpol through the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is the National Central Bureau for Interpol in India.

The CB-CID has requested the NFSU to expedite the cyber forensic analysis of the call detail records (CDRs) of the mobile numbers used by more than 30 people who are on the list of suspects. The CDRs had been stored by BSNL in the now out-dated magnetic tape format and the CB-CID sent 10 tapes to the NFSU in 2023 to retrieve the data. The sources said the CDRs could shed more light on the conspiracy, execution and aftermath of the crime.

While the first accused, Kanagaraj, was killed in a road accident near Attur on April 28, 2017, Sayan suffered serious injuries in an accident on Palakkad-Thrissur Road the next day, in which his wife and daughter were killed.