Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

More time given to probe woman missing case

Staff Reporter

MADURAI : After perusing a status report filed by the Crime Branch-CID probing the involvement of a ruling party MLA, Pappa Sundaram, in a woman missing case, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday granted further time to the investigating agency to complete the investigation.

A Division Bench comprising Justice R. Balasubramanian and Justice R. Regupathy posted the matter to February 28.

According to the habeas corpus petitioner, L. Jothiramalingam of Kulithalai in Karur district, his wife, J. Meenakshi (34), a highschool teacher, went missing on October 19, 2004, while returning from school. He suspected the involvement of the MLA in her missing and alleged that the local police failed to take effective steps to trace his wife.

Hence, the Madurai Bench, on January 10, 2005, handed over the investigation to the Crime Branch-CID and the Director-General of Police was directed to personally monitor the probe. Since then, the agency had been seeking adjournments on regular intervals promising a breakthrough at the earliest.

When the case was heard last December, the investigation team said it was unable to trace the woman despite sincere efforts and requested the court to close the petition and transfer the enquiry to the local Deputy Superintendent of Police. But the Bench declined to accept the plea and asked the agency to continue its probe.

In its latest status report, the CB-CID team said the MLA and his son, Karunakaran, were subjected to polygraph (lie detector) test in the forensic sciences laboratory in Bangalore and it did not disclose any incriminating evidence implicating their complicity in the offence.

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