Crime Branch to question CBI ASP

KOCHI: The Hurt and Homicide Wing (HHW) of the Crime Branch will quiz Thiruvananthapuram CBI unit ASP Nandakumar Nair as part of its investigations into the alleged suicide of CBI Additional Superintendent of Police P G Haridath, who was the investigation officer of the Sampath custodial murder case.
Nandakumar Nair had supervised the probe into the sensational murder case.
According to highly-placed sources in the Crime Branch, the team will question around 20 officials and staff at the CBI Thiruvananthapuram unit. “At the beginning of the investigation, Nandakumar Nair had supervised the CBI team which probed the Sampath case. Grilling Haridath’s co-workers would help us find out whether there was any pressure from the higher-ups on him,” sources said.
According to the Crime Branch official, there were a couple of issues regarding Haridath’s death that needed to be scrutinised.
The Thiruvananthapuram CBI office had issued memos to Haridath in the initial stages of the investigation into the Sampath case, ‘asking him to follow the CBI manual and obey the head of the unit’. To which Haridath replied that he had to follow the directions of the Kerala High Court, and those issued by  the CBI higher-ups were contradictory to the court directive. The High Court had earlier directed Haridath to conduct am interference-free investigation.
Later, the Thiruvananthapuram CBI unit had approached the Supreme Court targeting Haridath and said that the investigating team under the orders of the CJM was blatantly defying the hierarchy of the CBI.
The then head of the Thiruvananthapuram unit had also pointed out that the investigation that was continuing according to the judgment was an investigation by the CJM under the direct supervision of the High Court with the assistance of five CBI officials, and it cannot be called an investigation by the CBI.
The CBI investigation into the Sampath case got mired in controversy after the CBI team led by Haridath arraigned two senior IPS officials as accused in the case.
During the investigation, the team had collected statements from 65 persons which include the relatives and the doctor who treated Haridath for depressive disorder. According to the doctor, Haridath had no propensity to commit suicide. If there was such a tendency that would have been recorded in the case sheet.