THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CBI on Saturday interrogated Prakashan Thampi — the former manager of Balabhaskar’s band — in connection with the violinist’s death. Thampi was one of the accused in a gold smuggling case reported last year at Thiruvananthapuram airport. Thampi was accused of alleged misusing the musician’s foreign trips for smuggling gold. He was let off after questioning which lasted for around four hours.
Led by CBI DySP (Thiruvananthapuram unit) T P Anandakrishnan, the interrogation began at 11am at the CBI office at Muttathara in Thiruvananthapuram and ended around 3pm. Sources said the CBI suspects Thampi’s involvement in the death as he was earlier arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), bringing into question the real cause of the death.
On Friday, the CBI had collected evidence from Priya Venugopal, a relative of Balabhaskar’s wife Lekshmi, who too termed the death mysterious. DRI had arrested Thampi on charges of smuggling in connection with the seizure of 25kg of gold from a passenger who alighted at the Thiruvananthapuram airport from Dubai on May 15, 2019.
The violinist’s father C K Unni had alleged the involvement of Thampi and Vishnu Somasundaram in the death. Unni had filed a complaint to State Police Chief Loknath Behera seeking a detailed probe. He alleged the accident was managed by the gold smuggling racket, which prompted the government to hand the case over to CBI.
Last year, Kalabhavan Soby, a mimicry artist, claimed that he saw two persons under suspicious circumstances a few moments after the accident. He said, when he called Thampi to convey his suspicions about the death, the response was not positive. Thampi later told him that the Attingal police were probing the case and that Thampi would call him. But no one called him, he said.