Even as Kalyani Gajapati, daughter of Parala Maharaja Gajapati Gopinath Narayan Deb, said she did not have any idea about threat to her father’s life, the SIT of the Crime Branch probing the Parala palace staffers’ death on Friday met her here and discussed about the palace affairs with her.
SIT chief RB Panigrahi met the princess at a lodge at Purunapatna in the morning and held close-door talks with her for 15 minutes.
Kalyani, who has been staying in Chennai for a long time, arrived here late on Thursday evening and returned to Chennai on Friday.
However, Kalyani condoled the mass suicide of the four siblings and told reporters that she did not know them.
On the issue of the alleged threat to the Maharaja’s life, Kalyani said, “I am ignorant of this; neither do I have any information about the request made by father to ensure more security due to danger to his life.”
But she further revealed that she was alienated from her father and was not even informed by the palace staffs about his health condition.
“Since April this year, I was not being informed about my father’s health. Before April, on a few occasions I used to receive calls from palace staffs who informed that the Maharaja’s health condition was slightly bad. But after April, I was not being contacted by the staffs,” said Kalyani.
She said once she asked the caller to give phone to her father. “My father talked to me in a faint voice. But I never imagined that his health would deteriorate so much,” said Kalyani.
She wondered why she was not informed that the Maharaja has nobody of his own except her. Notably, the king’s only son and wife had died under mysterious circumstances.
She thanked Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and the State Government for taking care of her father’s treatment and also thanked the people in general for their support and love to her father.
The princess came here to cooperate with the SIT in the ongoing probe into the palace affairs. Before leaving Paralakhemundi, she also met the ADM at the Collectorate here and submitted a memorandum asking for support for early construction of a Jagannath temple in the palace.
Meanwhile, the SIT also interrogated Amulya Patra, brother of dead former palace manager Anang Manjari. The team also raided a cloth store owned by Amulya as part of its investigation.