Court grants anticipatory bail to two employees in Abaya case

Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 4 (UNI) A local court today granted ancitipatory bail to Chief Chemical Examiner of the Forensic Lab R Geetha and junior scientific officer K Chitra in the sensational Sister Abhaya case.

Judge of the Principle District Sessions court K Ramakrishnan granted the bail on a surety of Rs. 15,000 each and on the condition that both should appear before the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) court here before June eight.

Both the employees had gone underground after the CJM court issued non-bailable arrest warrants against them for their alleged involvement in tampering with the work book at the lab that contained preliminary inferences of the chemical examination of the vaginal swab and smear of Sister Abhaya, a crucial evidence in solving the mystery of her death.

The court had sent the tampered work book for forensic examination to the National Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad.

After the forensic test report confirmed that there had been tampering of certain entries in the work book, the CJM issued arrest warrants for the employees.

The court had registered a case against the two women officials on May 22 under section 202 of the Criminal Procedure Code based on a petition filed by Human Rights activist Jomon Puthenpurackal, alleging that the work book had been tampered with to contradict the original findings of the test.

The body of the 22-year-old nun of the Pius X Convent at Kottayam district was found floating in a well in the convent on March 27, 1992, under mysterious circumstances.

UNI