BENGALURU: Vasudev Suryavanshi, the 17th accused in the journalist Gauri Lankesh murder case, has accused the special investigation team (SIT) of forcing him to sign many blank papers when he was in police custody.
As his police custody ended on Thursday, the SIT officials produced him before the Special Court for KCOCA cases. When he was produced, he alleged that he was made to sign several blank papers without his consent. His counsel Nagesh Joshi, who filed an independent complaint before the special court, stated that the accused had retracted from any confession statement given to police.
“The accused is a school dropout and does not have much knowledge of any language other than his mother tongue. He is completely unaware of his legal rights and only when the accused talked to his advocate, he realised that there seems to be some foul play to use his signature against him,” the advocate stated, adding that Suryavanshi had not given any voluntary statement or admission to anyone including the police.
The complaint also stated, “On one of the days during his police custody, police took the accused to a person who looked like some senior-ranking official. The person showed him some of such papers bearing signatures of the accused and asked him whether the signature was his. After this one-line interaction between the accused and the person, Suryavanshi was taken away from the place. He was not even allowed to read what was there before his signatures or to confirm whether he had agreed with the same.”
In a statement issued later, the SIT however said the allegations are false and baseless. “In strict adherence of KCOCA provisions, on October 22, after the A-17’s confession was recorded by an SP-rank officer who is not part of the SIT, he was immediately produced before the jurisdictional Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM). He has not made or revealed any such allegations regarding signing of blank papers, not understanding the statement, not being allowed to read the statement, being forced to sign, etc. Also, at the same time when he was produced before the CJM, the voluntary confession statement duly signed by him was handed over to the CJM for further necessary action as per law. All KCOCA procedures have been followed and complied with”.The court remanded the accused in judicial custody.
Mohan Nayak’s bail plea rejected
The court rejected the bail petition filed by accused No. 7 in the case, Mohan Nayak, on Thursday. Nayak has been accused of harbouring the other accused at his Kumbalgodu house before and after the commission of the offence.