State seeks revoking of interim bail

The State government on Monday filed a petition in the High Court seeking to cancel the five-day interim bail granted to P. Krishnadas, Chairman and Managing Trustee of the Nehru College of Educational and Charitable Trust and first accused in a case registered in connection with the suicide of Jishnu Pranoy, a student at the group’s engineering college at Pambady in Thrissur.

Last week, the court had given interim bail to the accused to enable him to participate in meetings convened by the Thrissur District Collector to solve issues pertaining to the college.

Collector’s clarification

In the petition, Kiran Narayanan, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Irinjalakuda, said that when the petition came up for hearing last time, the counsel for Krishnadas had produced a letter purportedly written by the Collector inviting the petitioner for a peace talk on February 16. However, the Collector had clarified that the petitioner was not called for any such meeting. Nor he attended any meetings convened between February 16 and 21.Therefore, he had obtained the interim order by misrepresentation of facts.

The police officer said there was a deliberate attempt by Krishnadas to mislead the investigation. The Special Investigation Team had reliable information that he was hiding and shielding the other accused. In fact, the investigation of the case was not over. Materials such as bloodstains collected from the board room were forwarded to the court and for scientific examination. Krishnadas had already interfered with the case by intimidating witnesses and destroying evidence.

The petition said that if the accused was released on bail, there were chances of his influencing the witnesses and jeopardising the investigation. He had already threatened the witnesses, for which a separate case had been registered at the Pazhayanoor police station. There was circumstantial evidence to prove that Jishnu was taken to the board room and physically assaulted and mentally tortured with the knowledge of the first accused.

Destroying evidence

The police officer also said that all the accused had destroyed and fabricated evidence. They had deleted the CCTV footage and destroyed beyond repair the hard disk of CCTV and other systems in the administrative block. The accused had also tried to cover their crime and manipulated the crime scene by washing off bloodstains from bathroom walls. Fabricated documents were presented as those written by the deceased student.