The Judicial Magistrate Court-III here on Tuesday granted four days’ police custody of terror suspects ‘Police’ Fakruddin and Bilal Malik in connection with the murder case of BJP State medical wing secretary Dr V Arvinth Reddy.
The Special Investigation Division (SID) of the CB-CID had filed a petition on December 11 before the JM Court-III, seeking its permission to formally arrest Fakruddin and his associates Mohammed Ismail (alias) Panna Ismail and Bilal Malik, to investigate the murder of Dr Reddy, who was murdered at Kosapet on October 23 last year.
In the petition, the SID had stated that Vasur Raja (alias) Raja and six of his associates had been falsely arrested in the case by the local police. The SID suspected the hand of Fakruddin and his aides in Dr Reddy’s murder.
After the court granted its permission, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) R Raja Srinivasan, who is also the Investigation Officer (IO) of the case, formally arrested the trio on Monday.
The SID served the pending trail warrant (PT) in the case on Fakruddin, Malik and the administration of the Vellore Central Prison for Men, where they were remanded.
The officials said they would serve the PT warrant on Mohammed Ismail (alias) Panna Ismail, and obtain his police custody after he was brought to the Vellore prison. Ismail is under police custody in connection with Auditor V Ramesh case in Salem.
Earlier in the day, DSP Raja Srinivasan filed a petition before Magistrate of JM Court- III Sivakumar, urging the court to grant police custody for Fakruddin and Malik for seven days.
Fakruddin told the magistrate that the CB-CID had implicated him and his aides in several murder cases in the State and refused to go with the SID team, said sources in the court. The magistrate, however, granted police custody of the duo for four days from December 17 to December 20. He also directed the SID team to produce them before the court at 3 pm on Sunday. This is the fifth murder case in which the duo has been arrested. The other murder cases include those of Hindu Munnani leader S Vellaiyappan, BJP leader ‘Auditor’ Ramesh, BJP functionary Murugesan of Paramakudi and Suresh, a businessman from Madurai city.