Jayalalithaa death: Police asked us to switch off CCTV cameras, says Apollo Hospital in 5-page affidavit to inquiry commission

In another surprising update on the investigation into former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's death, Chennai's Apollo Hospital submitted a five-page affidavit, saying Inspector General (Intelligence) KN Sathiyamurthy was among the four police officers who ordered the hospital to switch off the CCTV cameras she was being hospitalised.

File image of former-Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, J Jayalalithaa. PTI

According to ANI, the hospital management informed the Arumughaswamy Commission of Inquiry, which is investigating Jayalalithaa's death, that "CCTV cameras in the corridors would be switched off when the former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa was taken through the route and it would be switched on when she was back in the room".

The announcement comes after the judicial commission probing the death hit a roadblock in its investigation, after failing to retrieve the crucial CCTV footage of the AIADMK chief's final days. The hospital authorities had told the commission that the CCTV recordings of  Jayalalithaa's 75-day-long stay in the hospital have been overwritten several times automatically.

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"The CCTV recordings get overwritten automatically after 30 days. This information was shared with the commission on 11 September," Maimoona Badsha, counsel for Apollo Hospitals, told IANS.

This was the second response from the hospital about the footage, which is different from its previous statement.

Earlier, Apollo Hospitals' executive chairman Prathap C Reddy had said that the CCTV cameras of the ward where Jayalalithaa was admitted were switched off.

Jayalalithaa was admitted to Apollo Hospitals for fever and dehydration on 22 September, 2016. After a prolonged hospitalisation, she had died on 5 December, 2016, following a cardiac arrest.

With inputs from IANS