Malabar Cements whistleblower V. Saseendran hung his two sons and committed suicide as he was under pressure from private contractor V.M. Radhakrishnan, the Central Bureau of Investigation said in the charge sheet filed in the case before the Ernakulam Chief Judicial Magistrate Court here on Saturday.
The CBI charged Radhakrishnan, also known as ‘Chakku’ Radhakrishnan, with abetment of suicide and criminal intimidation.
Saseendran, a former company secretary with Malabar Cements Limited (MCL), had been found hanging in his house in Palakkad with his two sons aged 11 and eight on January 24, 2011.
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‘Manipulated deals’
Saseendran had written to the Chief Minister in August 2010 that then MCL managing director Sundaramurthy and his secretary P. Sooryanarayanan had been leaking company information to outsiders.
Radhakrisnan, a private contractor with MCL, had allegedly been manipulating deals awarded by MCL for his own gain. He is being investigated by the Vigilance Department and Saseendran had been a key witness in these cases.
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The CBI charge sheet said Radhakrishnan had threatened Sundaramurthy and forced him to harass Saseendran. He also allegedly meddled in the internal affairs of MCL causing loss to the State.
Threatened
After Saseendran turned whistleblower, eight memos were issued against him in August 2010. The company also withheld his annual increment without any inquiry. Saseendran put in his resignation in September 2010 and was relieved of duty two days later.
The charge sheet said Radhakrishnan, on January 4, 2011, threatened Saseendran saying he would make it impossible for Saseendran to find work anywhere in the State. Sundaramurthy and Sooryanarayanan, who allegedly assisted Radhakrishnan in harassing Saseendran, had also turned approvers in the case.
The Chief Judicial Magistrate Court had earlier asked the CBI to properly examine the possibility of Saseendran’s death also being a murder and not a suicide. The court had noted that the first post-mortem report in the case had mentioned two ligature marks on Saseendran’s body, suggesting that he may have been strangled first and then hung. The CBI charge sheet, however, reiterated that Saseendran had committed suicide.