HC notice to an accused in murder of Hindu Munnani worker

The Madras High Court today issued a notice to one of the two people accused of being involved in the killing a Hindu Munnani activist in 2016 on an appeal by the NIA against the order of a special court, declining grant of their police custody.

The appeal was represented by Superintendent of Police, National Investigating Agency, Hyderabad before a division bench, comprising justices M Venugopal and R Hemalatha.

The bench issued a notice to Mohammed Mubarak's counsel and posted the matter to April 24 for further hearing.

Originally, the chief investigating officer of the NIA had filed a petition in the special court here, which was set up for exclusive trial of bomb blast cases, seeking 10 days' police custody of the accused, Subir and Mubarak.

Sasikumar was killed on September 22, 2016. The probe into the case was taken over by the NIA from the SIT, CB-CID Coimbatore on January 31 2018.

On February 21 this year, the NIA moved the special court, stating that custodial interrogation of the two was needed to collect more evidence "to unearth the overall larger conspiracy in the case".

The judge declined to grant police custody, saying there might have been a change of investigating agencies, but irrespective of whether the probe was continued or carried out afresh, "the period of detention of the accused has no change in color and gets continued from the very first day in custody".

"Even as per the provisions of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the detenues cannot be placed under police custody and hence not inclined to grant police custody," he had said.

Challenging the order, the NIA filed an appeal in the Madras High Court recently.

The NIA submitted that it took over the probe only on February 21, and custodial interrogation of the accused was necessary so that their examination may provide further leads to prosecute the actual culprits within the stipulated time frame.

It said the court ought to have seen that the role of each accused in the conspiracy needed to be established elaborately. Hence one-to-one interrogation was needed to bring the actual facts and remove inconsistencies and discrepancies, if any, the agency said.

Custodial examination was also required to corroborate the statements of witnesses and new evidence which might emerge, the NIA said.