BENGALURU: While there are allegations against the Cubbon Park police of trying to shield Mohammed Haris Nalapad in the attempt to murder case, officials of the Central Crime Branch (CCB), entrusted with the probe, have expressed displeasure over local police handling the case. It’s been more than two days, with just a day to go for police custody to expire, but CCB has had no chance to begin its investigations.
Police officers have been making contradictory statements on who is investigating. DCP (Central) Chandragupta, at a press conference on Tuesday, said the local police are currently probing. An official in Cubbon Park police station too told Express that he was still handling the case. But the City Police Commissioner T Suneel Kumar said the CCB officials were probing the case.
Admitting that the case was not yet taken up by the CCB completely, a CCB official said, “The case was referred to us on Sunday night. On Monday, we appointed an inspector as the investigation officer. Before the CCB team took over the case, the local police produced the accused before the court and took them into their custody.
Technically, we can’t take the accused into our custody when they are already remanded in the local police custody. We will approach the court on Wednesday, when their police custody ends, and request the court to remand them in CCB custody.” The accused were in Cubbon Park police station on Tuesday. It is learnt they were not questioned much nor taken out for spot mahazar.
Senior counsel M T Nanaiah said two agencies cannot probe the same case simultaneously. “The case must have been immediately taken over by the CCB. Considering that the father of the prime accused is an influential person and the police station falls under his constituency, there are possibilities that he would interfere with - or influence - the investigation. CCB is a better agency compared to local police to probe cases that have political influences.”
Former DG & IGP ST Ramesh said as the inspector (Cubbon Park station) is already suspended, the officers investigating now will be more careful. “There is nothing wrong if the local police continues the probe. Both they and the CCB police work under the city police commissioner.”
Demand to extern Mohammed from city
BJP members in the Council demanded that Mohammed Haris Nalapad be externed from the city. Leader of Opposition in the Council K S Eshwarappa said such incidents reflected the decline of law and order situation in the state. Responding to the demand of externing Mohammed, Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy said Mohammed can neither be included in the rowdy-sheeter list nor can he be externed, as this was the first case registered against him. “Specific directions were also issued to ensure that all the culprits were arrested,” he said. Reddy added that the case against Vidvat, the victim, will be withdrawn.
HDK smells a rat in assault case
HUBALLI: JD(S) state president H D Kumaraswamy has smelt a rat in Vidvat assault case. He said, “It’s not just an assault case. There may be other angles to it. Anti-social activities like trading Bitcoin, hacking of computers and bank accounts may be involved. The cyber crime police have to investigate it thoroughly.” He charged that the Congress was trying to hush up the case. On BJP national president Amit Shah’s comment that Vidvat is a BJP worker, he said, “BJP is facing scarcity of issues to fight the ensuing Assembly election and that is why whenever any assault happens, the BJP claims the victims as their party workers.”
Puneet meets Vidvat in hospital
Actor Puneeth Rajkumar on Tuesday visited Mallya Hospital and met Vidvat Loganathan. Puneeth said Vidvat was recovering. “He is just like my brother...we are family friends. Those who attacked him should be punished. No one is above the law!” Meanwhile, Puneet’s nephew and actor Raghavendra Rajkumar’s younger son, Guru Raghavendra Rajkumar, who is also Vidvat’s schoolmate, posted a couple of photos on a social networking site - Guru standing with Vidvat in childhood, and a recent one on their long-time friendship - and wished him speedy recovery.