Main accused in Dubai murder ends life in train

AHMEDABAD: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) suffered a major setback when Devyani alias Annie Verghese, a prime suspect in the 11-year-old 'missing person's case' of a Kochi woman Smitha George from Dubai, consumed poison and succumbed on July 9.
Devyani consumed poison in the train's toilet while being brought to Ahmedabad in the third week of June for brain fingerprinting test at the Raksha Shakti University (RSU).She is the second suspect other than Smitha's husband Antony Chirakkal.
"The incident took place on June 16, 2016, just half-an-hour before the train in which Devyani was being brought by two CBI women PSIs was to reach Ahmedabad," said a railway police source. "Efforts to record her dying declaration at the ICU went in vain as she was declared unfit by the Civil Hospital doctors. Devyani had given her consent for the brain fingerprinting."
Devyani was admitted to the Civil Hospital but succumbed on July 9. Her body was cremated on July 14. Police sources said that her son Billu Mayen, 26, is a farm labourer in Palakkad. The CBI had borne his ticket charges so that he could visit the ailing mother in Ahmedabad.
"Mayen had visited Ahmedabad on July 4. He also told CBI that Devyani was out of touch for almost a decade and that if anything happened to his mother she should be cremated as per government procedures as he cannot afford to come back. Mayen left on July 6," said a senior police source.
Investigating agencies suspect that Devyani had consumed an insecticide kept in toilets of the air-conditioned coaches of the train. Meanwhile, RSU has submitted its report on Anthony's brain fingerprinting test to the CBI. A panel of eight doctors at Civil Hospital conducted the postmortem.
Smitha George had married Antony Chirakkal in May 2005 and had gone to Dubai in September to stay with him. Devyani was a domestic help at Antony's Dubai home. One day, Antony called up Smitha's parents in Kerala to say that she had eloped with another man. Antony even faxed a letter, which he claimed was written by Smitha.
Meanwhile, Kerala police which was probing the missing complaint, found that the handwritten letter matched with Antony's handwriting. Smitha's skeletal remains were recovered from an isolated place in Sharjah in the UAE.
"The CBI had sent us the interrogation tapes of Devyani for Layered Voice Analysis (LVA) test. We are analyzing the tone and manner in which the questions are answered by the suspect and trying to conclude whether the suspect is lying or not," said a senior RSU official.