Mishel Shaji Varghese killed herself in mental agony, said the police in HC: file photoKochi: Mishel Shaji committed suicide out of mental agony and stress, said the police in a deposition before the High Court Thursday.
The court was seeking the police version while considering the application from Mishel's father Shaji Verghese, seeking a CBI probe into the death.
The death and disappearance of the 18-year old aspiring chartered accountant had become a sensational case in Kerala.
Mishel, from Ilanji near Piravom, was living at Palarivattom in Kochi to prepare for her exams when she mysteriously disappeared in the first week of March, only for her body to be discovered in the Kochi Lake near a wharf on Willingdon Island a day later.
Crime Branch DySP Geroge Cheriyan, who has been leading the investigation deposed before the court that the doctors who conducted the autopsy have confirmed that the girl died of drowning and there were no signs of any assault or force on her body.
The police also told the court that the laptops and mobile phones used by the deceased and the accused, Cronin, have been sent for scientific investigation.
C-DAC is examining the sim cards that the parties used, the police said.
The police also informed the court that departmental inquiry was underway to identify the lapses from the side of the cops from three different police stations who reportedly mismanaged the investigation in the initial stages.
According to the police the girl has taken the extreme step following mental harassment from Cronin, the accused in the case.
She was last seen on March 5, Sunday leaving the St Antony’s shrine at Kaloor. Her body was found in the Vembanad lake the next evening.
Surveillance camera footage showed Mishel leaving the shrine.
Mishel's family have all throughout insisted they did not believe that the young woman killed herself.
They had pointed fingers of suspicion at the two mysterious people seen on a motorcycle near the shrine that Mishel visited.
The family had demanded that the the police must interrogate the people who have spoken to Mishel just before her mobile phone was switched off somewhere at Kaloor.
