Eight months after the Kerala government handed over the probe into musician Balabhaskar’s death in a road accident in 2018 to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the investigating agency has filed the first information report (FIR), formally taking over the case. The CBI will investigate a gold smuggling link to Balabhaskar’s death. His family alleged that the suspects have links with gold smuggling and there were suspected transactions in the account of Balabhaskar after his death.
As per the procedure, the probe agency has taken over the FIR of the Kerala Police pertaining to rash driving in which Balabhaskar's friend Arjun was named as accused, they said. Arjun is alleged to have driven the car at the time of the accident.
The renowned violinist was returning after a temple visit from Thrissur, along with his wife Lakshmi one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Tejaswani and Arjun, when their car had met with the accident near the CRPF camp in Pallipuram on National Highway 66 at 4.15 am of September 25, 2018.
Passersby, local residents and highway patrol of the Kerala Police started rescue operations and took the injured Balabhaskar, Lakshmi and driver Arjun to the Medical College Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, and Tejaswini to the Ananthapuri Hospital. The hospital declared Tejaswini dead on arrival. The injured persons later moved to the Ananthapuri Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram where Balabhaskar died on October 2. The postmortem of the child revealed that she died due to head injury, while for Balabhaskar head and chest injuries proved fatal.
The CBI registered the FIR under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC): section 279 (rashing driving on a public way), 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 304A (causing death by negligence).
Last year, Balabhaskar's father Unni met Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and sought a CBI probe into the death of his son and granddaughter Tejeswani. He alleged a conspiracy behind his son's death. "I feel the accident was engineered," Unni had told the media in Thiruvananthapuram.
The crime branch, which had probed the case, had not found anything unusual in the accident and had not looked into it from the conspiracy angle, he had said.
Prakash Thampy, a close aide of the violinist, who had been arrested in connection with gold smuggling by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), and Arjun had stated that it was Balabhaskar who was at the wheel. However, police investigations had revealed Arjun was driving the car on the day of the accident.