CB to record statements of more people in Bala case

Thiruvananthapuram: With more and more people coming out with new revelations regarding the life and death of violinist Balabhaskar, the crime branch team probing his death has decided to record statement of all such persons.
After Balabhaskar’s father K C Unni and Kalabhavan’s programme director Soby George, Balabhaskar’s cousin Priya Venugopal too had raised several allegations putting many of the late musician’s friends and even his wife Lekshmi under suspicion.
In a Facebook post, Priya had alleged that police must probe the source of the gold ornaments found in the possession of Lekshmi during the time of the accident.
She also alleged that the relatives even had to fight with his friends while Balabhaskar was hospitalised following the accident as the latter kept the former unaware of his condition. His friends and wife took all decisions pertaining to Balabhaskar’s possessions and they even tried to sell of his prized violins without consulting his family, she alleged in her Facebook post.
She also criticised Lekshmi for using Balabhaskar’s official social media page to wash her hands by claiming that they had no relationship with Prakash Thampi and Vishnu. However, Lekshmi responded to this by stating that she never claimed that she did not know Thampi and Vishnu. She just said that Thampi was not the manager of Balabhaskar as claimed by media.
Crime branch sources said that they would first record the statements of Unni, Soby George and Priya. They would also file an application before the economic offences court in Kochi seeking permission to record the statements of Thampi and Vishnu, who are currently under judicial custody in connection with the airport gold smuggling case.
DRI sources too said that they would record Unni’s statement as part of the probe.
Meanwhile, Unni said that he was unsatisfied with the pace of the police probe and was thinking of approaching the chief minister with a plea to speed up the probe.
“The family members are still mulling over the future course of action,” he added.