Ambar wrote:It must be noted that one of George Muthoot's son, Paul Muthoot, was brutally murdered in Kerala in 2009, the motive for the crime remains largely unknown to this day.
First Report:
Nine get life term for 2009 murder of Muthoot group scion.
A CBI court in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday sentenced nine accused to life imprisonment and four others to three years in jail in the sensational case pertaining to the murder of young businessman Paul Muthoot George in 2009. George had been the executive director of the Rs 20,000-crore Muthoot Group, one of the leading NBFCs in the country.
Earlier in the day, judge R Raghu found 13 accused persons guilty while acquitting another alleged accused. The nine accused persons, who got life term, had direct involvement in the murder, while the other four had been charged for destroying the evidence.
paul muthoot georgeGeorge was the executive director of the Rs 20,000-crore Muthoot Group, one of the leading NBFC in the country.
According to the prosecution, George was travelling along the Alappuzha-Changanassery road on the night of August 22, 2009.
He was accompanied by two wanted criminals, Om Prakash and Puthanpalam Rajesh, who allegedly had links with CPI (M) leaders.
The accused persons were members of a supari gang, who were going from Changanassery to Alappuzha in two vans to attack a person in Alappuzha. However, one of their vehicles developed some hitch. While they were repairing the vehicle, the car in which George and his friends were travelling hit a two-wheeler parked near the van which was being repaired. However, George drove away without attending to the two-wheeler rider. This provoked supari gang leader K Jayachandran who asked his colleagues in the other vehicle to follow the car.
The other gang members acted accordingly and tracked down the businessman’s car later in that night. They got into a scuffle with George and subsequently, one of the gang members, K Satheesh, stabbed George. Meanwhile, the two criminals who were accompanying George fled the scene.
Initially, the case was probed by the state police. But, George’s family moved the High Court, which handed over the probe to CBI. Both investigating agencies had concluded that there was no conspiracy behind the murder, which, according to the police, was an outcome of an accidental roadside scuffle.
The murder had snowballed into a major controversy after it was found that the criminals, Om Prakash and Puthanpalam Rajesh, were allegedly close to the son of then home minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, a CPI (M) Politburo member.
The state police revealed that George was stabbed using an “S” shaped knife. They recovered one such knife, but later a blacksmith said the police had asked him to make such a knife after the murder. CPI(M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan, then party state secretary, had joined issue saying the S knife was normally used by the RSS.
Second Report:
Drugs, Deals and Dons Dealt in Death.
The mystery behind the murder of Paul Muthoot George, scion of one of India’s biggest financial companies, on August 21, 2009, has been solved on August 31 with the sentencing of the accused.
The case involved a rich and flamboyant victim, his cronies who fled from the murder scene and gangsters who decided to deliver their own form of justice. Paul, who was hacked to death in Kerala's Alapuzha, was the 32-year-old son of the multi-crore Muthoot M George Group chairman M G George. Paul was the executive director of the group and was heading its hospitality sector with varied interests in tourism and resorts at various places in Kerala.
The Kerala Police cracked the case within 24 hours and they found that a myterious woman, Vilasini, and her son Satheesh Kumar who had a criminal background, were involved in it.
According to Inspector General (IG) Vinson M Paul who was heading the Special Investigation Team (SIT), the SUV driven by Paul knocked down a two-wheeler at Pallathuruthy around 2.5 km from the murder spot and he drove away without stopping. As many as 22 gangsters from Changanassery who were on their way to Alappuzha for some ‘quotation’ work were at the accident spot, fixing a problem in one of their vehicles. Some of them chased Paul’s vehicle and intercepted it when he stopped to check the radiator of his SUV. A scuffle took place between Paul and the gangsters, during which he was stabbed from behind. However, the goons fled when they saw an approaching vehicle driven by Paul’s driver Shibu.
However the ‘real’ motive behind the murder remained a puzzle to many even after the local police and the CBI arrived at the same conclusion that it was the result of a freak road rage.
There was a controversy regarding a S-shaped knife for which even the police were under the scanner after a news channel aired an investigation report which said a certain circle inspector approached a blacksmith in Alappuzha to make an ‘S’ shaped knife after the IG told media that the murderer had used such a knife. The case was then handed over to the CBI by the Kerala High Court. While the police chargesheet had stated that a ‘S’ shaped knife had been used to stab Paul, the CBI charge sheet said another knife was used to stab the victim which was recovered from Manancherry at Alappuzha. Twenty eight persons were accused by the CBI in its charge-sheets.
A CBI special court on August 31 sentenced nine accused—Jayachandran, Satheesh, Sathar, Sujith, Akash Sasidharan, Satheesh Kumar, Rajeev Kumar, Shino Paul and Faisal—to life imprisonment and four others to rigorous imprisonment of three years each.
However, Paul’s murder had exposed the nexus between the worlds of business and crime.
Omprakash and Puthenpalam Rajesh, who were wanted under the Goonda Act, were accompanying Paul at the time of the incident. It was learnt that Omprakash, who was in a hideout in Tamil Nadu, had gone to Kochi to meet Paul as wanted by the latter. Paul was suspected to have been using the services of the two for certain shady business dealings.
The tycoon, a bachelor, who had been living in Delhi for many years, had also figured in a Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances case. A person identified as Fazal Khan, who was held by the Delhi police with 125 gm for heroin, had confessed before the police that he used to supply the heroin to Paul. But Paul was later acquitted by a Delhi court in the case citing that the prosecution could not prove his involvement in the case.
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