CHENNAI: As the CBI is tightening the noose around the Maran brothers, accused in the secret telephone exchange scam, the whereabouts of former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi and his elder borther and media czar Kalanidhi, remains a mystery.
It is learnt that the central agency that is probing the case has summoned them to appear before the investigation team on Monday.
Even as strong rumours are doing the rounds that Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi, who is the owner of the multi-million Sun Group, have left for Brazil to watch the football carnival, a person close to the Dayanidhi has refuted it.
“Dayanidhi is in Chennai,” he told Express, maintaining that the rumours were wrong.
However, CBI sources said the brothers have been strictly directed to appear before them and cut short any foreign trip they are undertaking.
According to sources intelligence agencies suspect that the brothers could have flown out of the country from some other cities in the country.
The case has it that Dayanidhi, who was the Union Telecom Minister between 2004 and 2007, abused his official position to draw 323 telephone lines to his residence at Boat Club in Chennai, which was used to upload signals of the Sun TV Network owned by his brother Kalanidhi Maran.
The scam that caused several hundred crores of loss to the state-run BSNL came to light after an expose by the Express which revealed a secret report prepared by the CBI in 2007 about the illegal exchange set up at his residence.
Hansraj Saxena, former senior executive of the Sun TV Network and once the Man Friday of the Marans, had confessed to the CBI that he had knowledge about the illegal use of the BSNL lines to upload the signals of the channels of the network.
The CBI, which has collected material evidences of the scam, had summoned Dayanidhi Maran and Kalanidhi Maran to appear before it on Monday for interrogation.