Witness examination resumes in Sister Abhaya murder case

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The second session of

witness examination

in

Sister Abhaya murder case

began here on Monday with the examination of two government officials who had worked in sub-divisional magistrate’s office,

Kottayam

, during the crime branch’s investigation into the case in 1999.


The officials were summoned by prosecution to prove that a crime branch team had destroyed some of the crucial material evidence collected from the St. Pius X convent premises on the day Sister

Abhaya

died. The officials who testified before CBI special judge K Sanilkumar were Divakaran Nair, who had worked as a UD clerk, and John, who retired as deputy collector.

During the examination, Nair told the court that the list furnished by the crime branch during the handing over of material evidence back was not in proper format. Detailing the official process of having a proper file with examination of each items marked with signature of the officials, Nair said the list furnished by crime branch DSP K Samuel was not in the proper format. The DSP claimed to have returned the list of material evidence that included the veil of Abhaya, a pair of brown chappals and a plastic bottle to the SDM after the investigation. However, after examining the document, Nair said only the signature of senior superintendent was on the file and the note was not properly recorded as a file.

The prosecution alleged that the crime branch team hadn’t returned the material evidence but had only manufactured a document to give an impression that those had been returned.

Prosecution counsel M Navas asked Nair and John about the alleged burning of the diary of sister Abhaya by the officials of SDM court. Nair said then SDM SGK Kishore had ordered a cleaning drive by destroying outdated documents, but he was not sure whether any material evidence had been destroyed during the drive.


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