Ex miss Kerala mishap: Hotel owner, 5 employees arrested for destroying CCTV footage

Kochi: The Kerala Police on Wednesday arrested the owner and five of the staff members of the No 18 hotel in Kochi in connection with the probe into the accident that killed Miss Kerala Ansi Kabeer, that year's runner-up Anjana Shajan and a friend.

The arrest was made after it was found that hotel owner Roy J Vayalat with the assistance of his five employees destroyed a Digital Video Record (DVR) that contained CCTV footage of the party hall and parking area of the hotel where the accident victims attended the night event.

Despite several summonses, hotel owner Roy J. Vayalatin did not come forward to record his statement and after the State Police chief Anil Kant intervened, he finally appeared before the probe team on Tuesday and after the day's questioning was over, he was sent but asked to appear again with all the hard disks of the visuals of the CCTV installed at his hotel.

While Ancy Kabeer, 25, and Anjana Shajan, 24, had died instantly in the crash, a third-person- Ashiq, succumbed to his injuries a few days later, leaving Abdul Rahman, who drove the car, the only witness.

Rahman is presently out of hospital but the police have arrested him under charges of 'involuntary manslaughter'.

Though the probe team recovered the hard disk of the CCTV footage at the hotel, it failed to get any visuals of the party, raising suspicions.

And when on Wednesday the hotel owner came with hard disks, there was nothing that the police was looking for and on questioning his staff the truth surfaced that the hard disks were removed by the owner himself.

Two employees who are believed to have destroyed the hard disks by throwing them in the nearby river was brought to the area and after a search, nothing was recovered and then the police probe team went ahead and recorded the arrest of Vayalatin and five of his staff members under charges of destroying evidence.

The police team after several days of probe found out that there was an "unpleasant" incident during the party. Before things could take an ugly turn, the youngsters had left the hotel.

Later it was found out that Rahman was driving under the influence of alcohol.

It was on their way back that the car, after hitting a two-wheeler, lost control and turned turtle.

However, police found that there was a vehicle following the car carrying the two women.

During interrogation, the driver of the car said that the victims' car was going at a breakneck speed.

According to reports, the driver of the car which followed the other car had called up and informed the hotel owner about the accident.

The police were suspicious of the manner in which Vayalatin was going about the whole incident after the accident took place.

Earlier in the day Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan who hails from the district said that a special team has to be appointed in the probe as even after two weeks of the incident, not much progress happened in the case.