MADRAS, 1 December 2004 — Usha Rani, a 47-year-old woman who the Tamil Nadu police allege had links with Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi of Kanchipuram Kamakoti Mutt, appeared yesterday before a senior police officer and asserted that there was no clandestine or illicit relationship between her and the Shankaracharya as hinted by police.
Saraswathi is being investigated by police in the murder of Thiru Sankararaman, an official of the mutt, in September.
On Monday, police claimed in the Madras High Court that Saraswathi used to have long conversations by telephone with Usha and that she had been provided living quarters in Srirangam, 300 km from here, and money transferred into her account by the mutt. They also claimed that she had been on the run after cleaning out her bank account, and that her involvement in the conspiracy to murder Sankararaman needed to be investigated.
Yesterday Usha, accompanied by her brother and two lawyers, said she was suffering from breast cancer, and had contemplated suicide. But she had been dissuaded from doing so by Saraswathi.
She said it was her husband, before he deserted her a couple of years ago, who had taken her to the Shankaracharya’s mutt the first time when she was seriously ill, and that since then she had been receiving financial help from the mutt to meet her medical expenses.
Contrary to police claims that she had absconded, Usha said some policemen visited her at her Srirangam flat, where she had been living with her widowed mother, on Dec. 12 and questioned her about the Shankaracharya.
With her neighbors and the flat owner scandalized by the police visit, she was forced to vacate the flat and return to Madras, where she is now living with her brother, Usha said
The high court later reserved its ruling on the bail application filed by Saraswathi.
This is the second bail petition that the pontiff has filed in the murder case. The one filed on Nov 12, the day after his arrest, was dismissed.
Saraswathi is also charged in another case with an attempt to murder a Madras-based auditor, S. Radhakrishanan. The bail petition in that case is before the principal sessions judge.
