THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Crime Branch team probing Balabhaskar’s death recorded the statement of Prakashan Thampi, his former programme coordinator, now lodged in Kakkanad jail.
It is learnt Thampi confided he scoured CCTV footage from a juice shop in Kollam to find out whether Arjun drove the vehicle. But Thampi failed in the endeavour. Arjun’s contradictory statements prompted him to scour the footage, Thampi told police. Thampi said he returned Balabhaskar’s credit card to his wife but kept the violinist’s mobile phone with him.
The CB team has asked forensic experts who inspected the car to provide the report at the earliest. The CB expects the report will be helpful to find out the person who drove the car. C K Unni, Balabhaskar’s father, told police his son had said the car was driven by Arjun. Unni said Balabhaskar said this while he remained conscious at the hospital. To a question in this regard, Balabhaskar replied it was ‘Appu’, Arjun’s pet name.
The Crime Branch revealed it was Thampi who first sought the details of gold ornaments and cash found in the car which met with the accident. Police, who reached the spot, found around 40 sovereigns of gold and around `2 lakh inside the car. The police later handed over the gold and cash to kin of Lekshmi, wife of Balabhaskar, when they approached the police along with Thampi. The gold was reportedly ornaments of the couple’s girl child who also died in the accident.