In a new twist in the Sankararaman murder case, his wife Padma on Tuesday filed a petition before Principal District and Sessions Judge C.S. Murgan, seeking re-examination of her statement.
Padma and her daughter Uma Maitreyi, during cross examination on August 4, 2009, contradicted their statements made before the police and magistrate.
They told the court that they had identified the accused based only on photographs provided by the police and had not seen them during the attack on Sankararaman.
The signature on the documents seized from their house was not that of Sankararaman.
On Tuesday, Padma, accompanied by her son Anand Kumar Sharma, came to the court when Special Public Prosecutor Devadass was arguing the case. Immediately after the SPP wound up the arguments, she filed the petition before the Judge.
“Threatened”
Later talking to reporters, Mr. Sharma said that they wanted the court to conduct re-examination of his mother's statement as she was forced to change it.
She was threatened by some unknown persons inside the court premises when she came for cross examination.
His sister was also ready to face re-examination if the court allowed.
Sankararaman, manager of the Varadarajaswami temple at Kancheepuram, was murdered on September 3, 2004. On January 21, 2005, a special investigation team of the Tamil Nadu Police filed a charge sheet in a Kancheepuram court.
The case was later transferred to Puducherry.
