VIP Treatment to Nisham; Probe Team in Trouble
THRISSUR:The new evidence revealing VIP treatment accorded to controversial businessman Mohammed Nisham, while in custody was out, has put the beleaguered police into further trouble, who have been facing charges of protecting and meting out favours to the murder accused right from the beginning of the probe.
Nisham was arrested for murdering a security guard of his apartment complex for delaying in opening the gate. The sources in the department have on Friday released the visuals of the murder-accused using mobile phone in police custody during his sojourn in Bangalore as part of the investigation.
The visuals showed him calling his friends and relatives over phone near his luxury car when the investigation officer Bijukumar and other team members looked on.The new visuals have appended the revelation of former (suspended) city police commissioner Jacob Job, who alleged that the investigation team went to Bangalore for pleasure trip and not for investigating the case.
He also revealed that three of the investigation team had sought money for weakening the case and providing undue favours in the custody.
Though Thrissur IG T J Jose probed the allegation against Job and his subsequent revelations following the direction of ADGP Sanker Reddy, the officers in the team was given clean chit, while pronouncing Job guilty of violation of service rules for closeting with Nisham secretly. The sources also said the investigation team which took Nisham to Bangalore in a Tempo traveller also used his Rolls-Royce car for travelling. Provisions were also given for him to meet his business partners and relatives there.
The affidavit submitted by the investigation officer P C Bijukumar in the court also underlined the contradictory stance of the police and the conflict of interest among them in investigating the case.The police in the report said the accused didn’t cooperate with the police when he was taken to Bangalore for investigating his narcotic links and source of income. But the visuals and the body language of the accused and the police in the visuals indicated there was no such incongruity between the accused and officials as they claimed.
After more skeletons tumbled out of the police cupboard, DGP K S Balasubramaniam said that he would look into the incident and probe under which circumstances the accused used phone in the police custody.
Nisham Not the RC Owner of ‘Hummer’
According to police, Nisham possesses more than 15 luxury vehicles, the cost of which is estimated to come around Rs 70 crore and he is not the RC owner of many of his vehicles. The RC owner of the Hummer used to knock down slain security guard is one Mr Singh from Punjab.