Thiruvananthapuram: Mystery behind death of musician Balabhaskar deepens

Thiruvananthapuram: The Crime Branch (CB) has started a probe into the role of two ‘gold smugglers’ in the accidental death of musician Balabhaskar, based on a charge raised by his father K.C. Unni. The CB has collected details of the gold smuggling through the Thiruvananthapuram airport.

Prakashan Thampi, who was arrested in the smuggling case, was Balabhaskar’s programme manager. Another accused Vishnu was his finance manager.

This has added to the mystery behind the accident that occurred at Pallipuram, near here, on September 25 last year, leading to the death of Balabhaskar in the hospital later.

However, Bala-bhaskar’s wife Lakshmi in a Facebook post said that Thampi and Vishnu were not her late husband’s staff members. They had only arranged some of his programmes, she said.

Vishnu was Balab-haskar’s friend from a young age. Thampi who ran a canteen in a hospital earlier was befriended by the violinist a few years ago only. It was Thampi who introduced Arjun, the driver at the time of the accident, to Balabhaskar.

Thampi had first reached the accident spot. However, later he distanced himself from Balabhaskar’s family.

Balabhaskar’s father had also linked his son’s death to a private ayurveda hospital in Palakkad. Its proprietor had close links with Thampi and Vishnu, he alleged.

Just before the accident, Balabhaskar had received several calls asking for his location, his father alleged.

The details of the calls to the four mobiles phones of Balabhaskar are being collected by the Crime Branch team.

Meanwhile, Kalabhavan Sobi, who travelled through the area just after the accident disclosed to television channels that he had seen some unusual things at the accident spot. A man ran away from the scene and another man pushed his bike away from the spot. He informed about the two men to his friend Madhu Balakrishnan who told this to Thampi. Thampi then called Sobi saying that the Attingal CI will call him to get further details.

Meanwhile, the DRI has been given three-day custody of advocate Biju, the main culprit in the gold case, who surrendered before the DRI on Friday.

The woman Sarina who was arrested in connection with the case has told the DRI that she had smuggled over 50 kg of gold through the airport. This was handed over to her by Jithu of Thiruvananthapuram who worked in Dubai. She was given 2000 dirhams and flight tickets each time she accompanied the gold carriers. She was asked to smuggle 25 kg of gold on May 13, the day she was arrested along with KSRTC conductor Sunil, saying that it was the last time Jithu was taking up the assignment as he was withdrawing from the smuggling job.