Thiruvananthapuram: K S Sarath Chandran, the magistrate who had recorded the sworn statements of three witnesses in the Abhaya murder case in 2008, deposed before the CBI Special Court here on Friday.
Sarath Chandran, now special judge for Idamalayar investigations, told the court that he had recorded the statements of the three under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code after ascertaining the identity of the witness and making sure that they were making their statements without coercion.
One of the witnesses, Sanju P Mathew, had disowned what he had told the magistrate on November 17, 2008. Sanju, who lived near the Pius X Convent where Abhaya's death had taken place, had sworn before the magistrate that he had seen the scooter of the first accused Fr Thomas Kottoor parked outside the convent on March 27, 1992, the night Abhaya was found dead.
But more than a decade later, when he stood before the CBI Special Court on August 27, 2019, Sanju told that he had not seen the scooter. Sounding deeply anguished, Sanju had told the Court that he was tortured into making such a statement by the CBI. Sanju had claimed that he was taken away by the CBI and kept in custody for four days. He even said the CBI officers handcuffed him while whisking him out of his house. The CBI lawyer, Navas, had then said this was a lie as the CBI office in Kochi did not have even a single handcuff. There was also the question of how Sanju could have accepted the magistrate's summons to give the 164 statement if he was in the CBI custody. On Friday, Sarath Chandran also said he did not think that Sanju was tortured.
The second witness, a thief named Adakka Raju, had stuck to the statement given to the magistrate when he deposed before the CBI Special Court on August 30, 2019. Raju had said he had seen both Fr Thomas Kottoor and Fr Jose Puthrikkayil inside the convent premises on the day Abhaya was found dead. Raju was at the roof of the convent to steal the lightning rod.
The third witness was Chellamma Das, a night security of a building close to the convent. Das had died in 2014, and so his version was not heard in the CBI Special Court. The prosecution managed to do this by making Sarath Chandran read out marked portions of Das's sworn statement in the court on Friday.
The defence objected saying that since Das was not cross-examined, the witness (magistrate Sarath Chandra) could only say that he had recorded Das's statement and nothing more.
The CBI special judge K Sanilkumar, however, let the magistrate to read out Das's statement.
In his sworn statement, Das had said he had thrice seen a man go inside the Convent by jumping the wall and stealthily moving towards the kitchen. Two times before the death happened and the third time on the night of Abhaya's death.
The first time when he saw a man sneaking in, Das had went to the Convent and called the sisters. One of the nuns had then appeared on the second floor above the porch. When he told her a man had sneaked in, the nun told him there was no one inside. He asked her to call the police. Soon enough the police came and Das too joined the policemen in their search of the Convent premises. No one was found.
The second time when someone sneaked in Das did not bother. "Last time when I told them they responded like it was not my business. So I didn't want to embarrass myself a second time," Das said in the statement. The third time he saw someone jump the wall of the Convent, it was the night Abhaya was dead.
Das also told the magistrate that he later, after watching photographs in newspapers, realised that the man who sneaked in during nights was Fr Jose Poothrikayil. Though he was the second accused in the case, the High Court had discharged Fr Poothrakkayil from the case for want of evidence.
The defense game plan, on the other hand, was to use the sworn statement of Adaykka Raju to draw attention to certain glaring contradictions. For instance, the sworn statement does not say the exact time Raju was inside the Convent.
"The prosecution says it is 3.30am to 4am but this is not mentioned in the statement," the defense lawyer said. It is said that Abhaya's death had happened by around 4.30am But then there is another mention in Raju's sworn statement that he had entered the Convent at around 1am, after midnight
Sarath Chandran agreed that nowhere was 3.30am to 4am found in the statement. "Whatever was not said will not be in the statement," he said.
Adaykka Raju's statement had yet another comment that would put the CBI in the back foot. He says that he was badly beaten up by "Hindi-speaking CBI officers" and said he felt so helpless that he had even purchased poison to commit suicide. CBI sources, however, said the Hindi speakers Raju was referring to were part of the first CBI team that concluded that Abhaya's death was a suicide.