THRISSUR: Almost seven months after the death, under controversial circumstances, of actor Kalabhavan Mani, the probe into the incident has hit another roadblock as the lie-detection test conducted on six friends of Mani including his manager and driver found no major contradictions in their statements given to the police.
"The police have received the report of the lie-detection test on Friday and there is no major incriminating material to take case forward based on the report for the time being,” deputy superintendent of police P Vahid Chalakudy told Express.
He added that the investigation team would consult the matter with higher-ups in the police and would take a decision based on the expert opinion. According to police, with the negative lie-detection test reports of his friends, further investigation may have to depend upon other circumstantial evidence to sum up the case to a logical conclusion.
The State government has already given consent for a CBI inquiry into the death of the actor as Mani’s brother R L V Ramakrishnan met chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the first week of June seeking a central probe into the case to unravel the mystery behind the death. “There has been a lot of contradictions in the case since right from the beginning of the case. Since the state government nodded for a CBI probe into the case, we are now pinning our hopes in the central agency,” Ramakrishnan told Express.
Earlier, the state lab report has found traces of pesticides including Chlorpyrifos in the body of late actor. However, the lab report from the Central Forensic Lab in Hyderabad found no traces of any such pesticides including Chlorpyrifos in the viscera sample of Mani. Besides, the Central Forensic Lab report confirmed bout 45 mlg of methanol or methyl alcohol in the viscera sample while the Kakkanad lab report found trace of methanol up to 26 mlg.
Mani was hospitalised in an unconscious state after a night of roistering in his farmhouse in Chalakudy and breathed his least on March 6, 2016. Though the police had registered a case of unnatural death, they failed to clear the mystery behind the actor’s “abrupt and fatal” hospitalisation.