Lakshmi Ammal, 80, a visually impaired woman, and her son, Muthuvinayagam, 48, who was intellectually challenged — both admitted to Anbu Jothi Ashram at Kundalapuliyur in Villupuram district on August 11, 2021 — are feared dead, police sources said.
The complainant in the case, S. Natarajan, 68, of Sankarankovil in Tenkasi district, told The Hindu on Saturday that investigators of the Crime Branch-CID also informed him that his cousin, Lakshmi Ammal, and her son had died after they were shifted to a home in Chengalpattu, and their bodies were disposed of.
“I am told that my cousin and her son died three months after I admitted them to Anbu Jothi Ashram. I was neither informed of their being shifted to another home nor about their death. I strongly suspect foul play in the demise of my close relatives and appeal to the authorities concerned to investigate the matter thoroughly,” Mr. Natarajan said.
Though the ashram authorities informed him that he could visit his relatives any time, they refused to attend calls or share information about their well-being when he telephoned them. “While Maria, wife of the prime suspect and ashram founder Jubin Baby, refused to share any information, Baby had never answered calls. After seeing the news in the media that many inmates had gone missing from the ashram, I went over there to check the condition of my relatives. But they were missing…I lodged a complaint with the police.”
Mr. Natarajan wondered how an unregistered ashram functioned for so many years without any intervention by law enforcement agencies and admitted a large number of differently abled, mentally ill and destitute people without any permission or record of their existence. Asked how he came to know of Anbu Jothi Ashram, he said the helpline staff of the Social Welfare Department gave him the details.
Earlier cases
Jayakumar, 60, the elder brother of Tamil Nadu Congress general council member G. Krishnamurthy, was shifted from Anbu Jothi Ashram to a home in Tirupattur district, where he died. With no information about his brother, Mr. Krishnamurthy lodged a complaint with the police that his brother, who was admitted to the old age home run by the Ignite Charitable Trust, Enikkara Thottam, Cuddalore, on July 2022, and then moved to Anbu Jothi Ashram, was missing. The status of Zafirullah, 70, who was admitted to Anbu Jothi Ashram and then shifted to the New Ark Mission of India (Home of Hope) in Bengaluru from where he and 14 other inmates allegedly escaped, is not known.
Mentally ‘unsound’
In a related development, the crucial statements of two accused persons arrested in the case have become questionable after doctors at the Villupuram government hospital declared them mentally unstable. Police sources said Muthumani, 35, and Boopalan, 35, were arrested along with the other accused on the charges of wrongful confinement, assault and rape by the Kedar police. They were produced before the Villupuram hospital doctors, who found them medically fit before being sent to judicial custody.
After taking over the case from the local police, the CB-CID took the two persons into its custody and produced them at the same hospital. However, this time, the doctors suspected them to be mentally unsound and put them under “observation”, the sources said.
Muthumari and Boopalan had told the investigators that they were employed for a monthly salary at the ashram by Baby and Maria. Acting on their instructions, they and other employees — Biju, Das, Ayyappan and Gopinath — would bring mentally challenged and destitute people to the ashram.
They would tonsure the inmates on arrival, erase their identities and torture them to instil a sense of fear in them. The duo also gave statements that they would transport batches of inmates to other homes, the sources added.
