THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Coming under seething criticism from the High Court for not arresting former Travancore Devaswom Board member K P Sankar Das, who is an accused in the Sabarimala gold theft case, the Special Investigation Team on Wednesday recorded his arrest at the private hospital in Thiruvananthapuram where he has been undergoing treatment following a cerebrovascular accident.
The SIT recorded Das’ arrest in the presence of the magistrate and collected the medical reports from the hospital. The arrest details and the medical records will be filed before the Kollam Sessions Court on Thursday.
Das was a member of the board during 2019 period and has been arraigned as an accused in the cases pertaining to theft of gold from the dwarapalaka idols and door frames.
Former Devaswom board presidents A Padmakumar, N Vasu and board member N Vijaya Kumar were earlier arrested by the SIT.
The High Court had come down heavily on the SIT, accusing it of delaying Das’ arrest. The court had observed that Das has been hospitalised after being arraigned as an accused in the case and said it disagreed with the investigating officer. Das’ son Hari Sankar is a DIG-rank officer with the state police and the High Court made a mention of that while making the remark.
The SIT had arraigned him as an accused after assessing that the board members too played a role in the subterfuge. They along with Padmakumar were involved in taking the decision to hand over the gold-plated sheets to main accused Unnikrishnan Potti under the pretext of renovation works.
The SIT also accused board members- Das and Kumar- of conniving with Padmakumar to fabricate documents by marking the gold-sheeted copper plates as mere copper plates.
Das on Monday moved an anticipatory bail plea before the Kollam Sessions court citing health issues. The court postponed the hearing to Friday after the SIT failed to submit his medical records. Meanwhile, the bail pleas of prime accused Unnikrishnan Potti in both gold theft cases were rejected by the court.