A special team of the Tamil Nadu police probing a series of cases linked to former chief minister late J Jayalalithaa’s Kodanad estate is questioning Sasikala at her T Nagar residence today. This is the first time that Sasikala is being questioned by the police in connection with the case. She is being questioned by a police team headed by R Sudhakar, IG West Zone.

Sasikala is among the owners of the 800-acre Kodanad estate. The case pertains to a heist, a murder, and a series of suspicious deaths and accidents linked to the property. The IE report cited police sources as saying that Sasikala will be “questioned to ascertain the assets and other documents that were kept at the Kodanad estate”. The questioning is likely to take place at her T Nagar residence.

The case dates back to April 2017 when an armed group entered the Kodanad estate located in the Nilgiris and carried out a robbery and the murder of a security guard. Sasikala was imprisoned in connection with her conviction in a disproportionate assets case against her when the crimes were carried out. The case assumed significance following the suicide and two road accidents involving the first and the second accused in the case.

While the estate’s CCTV operator Dinesh Kumar died later, allegedly by suicide, another security guard Krishna Bahadur went missing later. A former driver at Kodanad Estate who was named as the first accused in the case was reported dead the same day that the Tamil Nadu police issued a lookout notice against him. The second accused, a Kerala native, also met with a road accident on the same day. His wife and child were also killed the same day.

While it was initially believed that the robbery was carried out to steal cash, computer drives and documents related to land and cash investments worth crores of rupees, the police claimed that only two wrist watches and a crystal doll were reported stolen.

Edappadi K Palaniswami, the then chief minister, was also accused of being linked to the heist, an allegation he dismissed as baseless. A thorough investigation into the Kodanad estate was among the major poll promises of the DMK which stormed to power in Tamil Nadu in the assembly elections held last year. 

After DMK came to power, the path was cleared for the reinvestigation into the case as a detailed probe was their poll promise.