CBI granted 2-day custody of Ponnuchami

JAIPUR: A day after inspector general of police A Ponnuchami was arrested by the CBI in the alleged fake encounter case of notorious criminal Dara Singh, a special CBI court here sent him to two days police custody.
Ponnuchami was brought to the CBI court in the morning. The agency sought a five-day custody of him saying that it has to recover the cellphone of Dara Singh which they believed to be in possession of the officer.
"Since the recovery of the cellphone was essential, the court may allow five-day remand of the official. He is not cooperating with us," the counsel for CBI pleaded.
However, objecting to it, AK Jain, counsel for Ponnuchami, said: "The term "cooperation" means CBI wants to pressurize the senior police officer in naming former PWD minister Rajendra Rathore in the case. He has always cooperated in the investigation, and hence five-day police custody should not be given."
After hearing the arguments, special judge Mahendra Singhal gave two-custody of the IPS officer to CBI with a rider that no officer other than the investigating officer would interrogate Ponnuchami. The judge cautioned the agency that only Santosh, deputy superintendent of police, CBI, would do the necessary interrogation and no senior official of CBI would interfere in the case.
The Supreme Court has been monitoring the case following a petition filed by Sushila Devi, widow of Dara Singh. A mafia leader of Churu district, Dara Singh had more that 20 criminal cases registered against him. An award of Rs 25,000 was announced on his head on October 18, 2006, just five days before he was allegedly killed in an encounter while fleeing Jaipur. According to SOG, its team had an encounter with Dara on October 23, 2006 in Rajendra Prasad Nagar in Mansarovar area. The CBI had already arrested four policemen - inspectors Nisar Khan and Naresh Sharma, sub-inspector Satyanarayan Godara and assistant sub-inspector Surendra Singh - in the case.
Ponnuchami, a 1991 batch officer was superintendent of police, Special Operations Group (SOG) at the time of Dara Singh's encounter.