NIA files charge sheet against six persons for bid to sabotage trial in 2023 Puducherry BJP leader murder case

NIA charges six in Puducherry BJP leader Senthil Kumaran's murder case for attempting to sabotage trial by threatening witnesses.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed charge sheet against six persons for allegedly threatening witnesses in a bid to subvert the trial into the murder of Puducherry BJP leader Senthil Kumaran in 2023.

According to a statement from the NIA, the charge sheet has been filed against the accused identified as Nithyanantham alias Nithi, Siva Sankar, Vengatesh, Ezhumalai, Heram alias Karthi and Udhayakumar, before a special NIA court in Puducherry.

Initially, a charge sheet was first filed against four of these accused — Nithyanantham, Siva Sankar, Vengatesh and Ezhumalai — for their alleged role in the fatal attack on the BJP leader.

In the new charge sheet, the NIA has filed fresh charges against these four, and has also charged Karthi and Udhayakumar for allegedly unlawfully obtaining witnesses’ details and issuing threats to them, the NIA statement said.

The case relates to the murder of Senthil Kumaran, a local BJP leader, who was brutally killed by six bike-borne assailants with explosives and lethal weapons at Villianur in Puducherry in March 2023, the probe agency said. Local police had initially registered a case which was subsequently taken over for investigation by the NIA.

According to NIA, investigations revealed that the four accused against whom charge sheet was previously filed, had conspired with the two others from the precincts of Central Prison Kalapet and Special Prison in Yanam, Puducherry, to unlawfully obtain certain confidential documents. They had then used these documents to identify the witnesses including the protected witnesses, with the intent of derailing the trial by threatening them against deposing before the trial court, the NIA said.