NAYAGARH: Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda was today taken on nine days' remand by the crime branch of Odisha Police after permission granted by a court in Nayagarh where he was produced amidst tight security.
Sub-divisional Judicial Magistrate Choudury Basudev Patra while granting the nine-day remand of Panda directed that the rebel leader be produced before the court on August 8.
The SDJM's court also ordered that the interrogation of Panda by the crime branch be conducted in the presence of his advocate or a family member or an authorised person, Panda's counsel Ranjit Das said.
Sabyasachi was brought here from Berhampur amid tight security and produced before the the SDJM court, which had earlier on July 24 allowed the crime branch police to take Panda on remand.
The crime branch is investigating into at least nine cases against Panda for alleged involvement in the
attack on district headquarter town of Nayagarh in February 2008 and the murder of Laxmanananda Saraswati in August 2008.
The cases against Panda included the landmine explosion in which five people, including a pregnant woman and her three-year-old daughter and a woman health worker, going in an ambulance died at Brahmanigaon in Kandhamal district in November 2010, attack on a police party in Gosma forests in February 2008 and loot of Nayagarh armoury in February 2008, police said.
Panda was arrested by the police from a house in Berhampur on the night of July 17 and subsequently sent on police remand.