'No trust in police': Naveen Babu's wife moves court seeking call records of collector, PP Divya

Kannur: Expressing total distrust in the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the suicide of former Kannur Additional District Magistrate Naveen Babu K, his wife and Konni Tahsildar Manjusha K has approached the court to direct BSNL and Vodafone India (Vi) to preserve the call data records of accused and CPM leader P P Divya and Kannur Collector Arun K Vijayan.

In her prayer submitted before the Kannur Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, Manjusha said, "The SIT has not done anything positively to collect the call data details of the District Collector, the accused (Divya) and T V Prashanthan, who claimed he gave Rs 98,500 to Naveen Babu to get a no-objection certificate (NOC) for his petrol pump at Kannur's Chengalayi grama panchayat.

Divya also publicly accused Naveen Babu of taking bribes to give NOC to Prashantha's petrol pump. Her scathing speech, couched in disarming calmness, was delivered in front of the collector after she gate crashed into former ADM's farewell on October 14. 

Naveen Babu was found dead in his room. Divya lost her job as District Panchayat president, and she was arrested on October 29 and remanded in judicial custody for 10 days.

Manjusha told the court that the collector was a crucial witness in the case, but he was changing his statements "to help the accused (Divya) with whom he had a close acquaintance in the past years".

The call data records assume importance to unearth the unholy nexus between the Collector and the accused, said Manjusha's advocate P M Sajitha.

Manjusha told the court that Prashanthan was also creating false evidence to help Divya.

The widow told the court that police need to find out the persons who met him after the farewell to unearth the facts of the case. "It can be done scientifically by collecting the CCTV footage from the premises of the Collectorate, Railway Station and the official quarters of the deceased," Manjusha said. "It is understood that the CCTV visuals are not seized by the 4th respondent,"she added.

The fourth respondent is the Kannur Town Police inspector Binu Mohan, who is the lead investigator of the case, and the Special Investigating Team is headed by Kannur City Commissioner Ajit Kumar. "On the other hand, they are trying to conceal evidence," Manjusha told the court.

"The petitioner has reasons to believe that the 4th respondent herein might wilfully suppress the call data records of the accused and the district collector, Kannur," she said.

She sought court intervention because Vi and BSNL—the two mobile service companies—would store CDR and tower locations only for two years. 

She asked the court to direct the police to collect and submit the CDR of Divya and the Collector Arun Vijayan, which were in use from January 1, 2024, to November 15, 2024. She also asked the court to direct police to collect CCTV footage from both sides of the road from the Railway Station to the official residence of the ADM from 4 pm on October 14 to 6 am on October 15