Jayalalithaa died a day before official announcement: Sasikala's brother

In a new twist to the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, the brother of her close aide, now jailed, V.K.Sasikala on Wednesday said that she died on December 4, 2016 and not on December 5 as officially announced by Apollo Hospitals.

Participating at the AIADMK founder and former Chief Minister M.G.Ramachandran (MGR) birth centenary celebrations in Tiruvarur district, V.Divakaran said Jayalalithaa died at 5.15 p.m. on Dec 4, 2016 and not the next day late night and the official declaration was delayed by a day so as to provide adequate security to the chain of Apollo Hospitals across the state.

His statement comes at a time when a Commission of Inquiry is probing into the circumstances that led to the hospitalisation of Jayalalithaa.

Jayalalithaa was admitted to Apollo Hospital on September 22, 2016 for dehydration. Later her condition got complicated.

On December 5, 2016, rumours were floating about Jayalalithaa's death in the evening which Apollo Hospital denied but later it was announced that she died at around 11.30 pm on that day.

She was in the hospital for 75 days before she breathed her last.