Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Crime Branch police yesterday filed the charge sheet in the sensational Paul M Muthoot murder case, sparing notorious gangsters Om Prakash and Puthenpalam Rajesh of murder but accusing them of destroying evidence.

The charge sheet filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate at Ramankari in the southern district of Alappuzha listed Jayachandran, the kingpin of a killer squad (quotation gang in local parlance), as the first accused in the murder of Muthoot group scion Paul George in a fit of rage on the Alappuzha-Changanassery road on the night of August 21.

According to the crime branch, Kaari Staheesh, the second accused, fatally stabbed the victim with an S-shaped knife.

Incidentally, the S-shaped knife theory had lent itself to much intrigue after a blacksmith disclosed that the police had ordered them to fabricate a knife with a similar specification.

Om Prakash and Puthenpalam Rajesh, who were the 13 and 14th accused in preliminary stages of the probe, moved down to the 24th and 25th positions in the charge sheet.

Both were charged with the destruction of evidence- driving away in Paul’s car from the murder scene.

They fled the crime scene in the Ford Endeavor car and abandoned it after it developed a snag in the neighbouring district of Kollam.

The duo spent the night at a friend’s place in Thiruvananthapuram, escaped to Tamil Nadu the following morning and later surrendered before a court in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu.

The charge sheet contains reports of lie-detector tests carried out on the two gangsters. The police did not subject them to the narco analysis test owing to health reasons.

The police stuck to their original theory that it was not a pre-planned murder but was carried out in a fit of rage.

The car in which Paul George was travelling knocked down a bike-rider and Jayachandran and company, on their way to the city on a different criminal assignment, picked up a quarrel with George and Kaari Satheesh stabbed him instantly.

The charge sheet listed 25 accused, with two of them absconding. Sathar, who stabbed Manu, and Abhi, who provided them shelter, are the third and fourth accused respectively. They have been charged on 12 different counts.

Manu is the second and Paul’s driver, Shibu, the first on a list of 188 witnesses.

Meanwhile, Muthoot G George, the father of murdered businessman, has demanded a CBI inquiry into his son’s death expressing strong apprehensions against the ongoing police inquiry.

the peninsula