Investigation in the Ilavarasan case has reached a crucial point, with the police coming across some vital mobile phone conversations in which the Dalit youth talks of his intention to commit suicide.
In a related development, the autopsy done by experts from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, said the youth’s death was due to fatal injuries caused by a moving train and there were no other injuries on the body to suspect physical torture. Going by voice records retrieved by the Tamil Nadu Forensic Science Laboratory from the mobile phone of Ilavarasan, he informed his friend Manoj Kumar that he was going to commit suicide. The call was made a couple of hours before his death on July 4. Manoj Kumar has given a statement before a Judicial Magistrate under Section 164 of Cr.PC confirming this, police sources told The Hindu on Wednesday.
In another call to a close relative, Ilavarasan said he was sitting alone on a railway track behind the Government Arts College in Dharmapuri consuming liquor. “Sensing trouble, Arivalagan (the relative) asked him to come home…to this Ilavarasan told him that he could not come home as he was drunk,” an investigator said. After Ilavarasan was found dead with a severe head injury along that railway track, police seized his mobile phone and referred it to the TNFSL in Chennai for analysis.
“These conversations were recorded by Ilavarasan and forensic experts retrieved them. The reason why he recorded the conversations is not clear,” he said.
In another conversation with his wife, he threatened to commit suicide if she did not come back to him. “This was three days before Divya told the Madras High Court that she would live with her mother and later to some mediapersons that her relationship with Ilavarasan had become incompatible. Ilavarasan even told her that his death would be gruesome,” the investigator said.
Earlier, the TNFSL had confirmed that the handwriting on the four-page suicide note was that of Ilavarasan. Police also said he had tried to commit suicide early in June by slashing his wrists in a lodge at T. Nagar here.
