CBI Takes over Probe into Death of Violinist Balabhaskar, Daughter in Road Accident in 2018

The CBI has taken over the investigation into the death of famous violinist from Kerala Balabhaskar and her daughter in a road accident in 2018 with his family alleging links of the accused with a gold smuggling ring, officials said on Wednesday.

As per the procedure, the probe agency has taken over the FIR of the Kerala Police pertaining to rash driving in which Balabhaskar's driver Arjun was named as accused, they said.

The renowned violinist was returning after a temple visit from Thrissur, along with his wife Lakshmi and one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Tejaswani, 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 Anathapuri Hospital.

The hospital declared Tejaswini dead on arrival.

The injured persons later moved to the Anathapuri 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.

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.

Unni 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, who drove the car on the fateful day, had stated that it was Balabhaskar who was at the wheel, he had said.

However, police investigations had revealed Arjun was driving the car on the day of the accident.