Indian googler

TV channels in Kerala yesterday telecast, for the first time, visuals of the narco-analysis tests conducted on the accused in the Sister Abhaya murder case, playing their confessions on the criminal act committed at a convent in the southern district of Kottayam 17 years ago.

However, within hours, the channels suspended the telecast of the 120-minute CD after the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Kochi observed that telecasting details of the evidence during trial would prejudice the case. The channels instead carried the CD clippings in subsequent news bulletins.

The tapes of the narco-analyses in the sensational Sr Abhaya murder case of Kerala came out on Monday, showing the accused, two priests and a nun of the powerful Knanaya Catholic Church, admitting to their crime of murdering the 21-year-old nun.

The recordings contained in an 80-minute CD also showed that the two priests, Fr Thomas M Kottoor (58) and Fr Jose Puthrukayil (56), and nun Sr Seffy (43) had a relationship between them. This was perhaps for the first time the recordings of narco-analsyes in a murder case coming out in the open.

The CD of the narco-analyses came out in the media after the CBI probing the case handed it over to the defendants along with certain other documents at the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Ernakulam on Monday noon. Fr Kottoor, Fr Puthrukayil and Sr Seffy, the first, second and third accused respectively, were subjected to the analyses at the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory in November, 2007.