In a follow- up to the robbery case involving two Kerala -based traders who were dispossessed of their jewellery by a gang in the vicinity of the Arapalayam bus stand a fortnight ago, the City police on Wednesday took custody of eight accused allegedly involved in the case after a judicial magistrate's court granted the police permission to question them.
The police said that the accused — Johnson, Pristo, Bobby, Revin, Sharath, Rijish, Sajeevan and Vishnuprasad — were produced before a the court. The court granted three days — January 23, 24 and 25 — for interrogation.
An officer accompanying the accused said that except 42-year-old Johnson, all others were around 25 years of age.
The city police took custody of the accused from a Kerala prison after obtaining the prisoner transfer warrants from the court here a couple of days ago.
The accused parties had been in the custody of the Kerala Police until now. Two traders from Thrissur in Kerala arrived here a fortnight ago carrying the gold in an omni-bus. They were waylaid by a gang, which fled with the gold after throwing chilly powder at them.
The Thideer Nagar police had registered a case. On receiving information that the accused were secured by the Kerala Police, a team rushed to Kerala.
The police there claimed to have registered a case and recovered the gold intact from the accused.
A senior police officer said that there are two first information reports for a single crime, which was reported first in Madurai.
“Only with our inputs, the Kerala Police secured the gang…They should have actually handed over (the accused and the property) to us for investigation,” he pointed out.
Assuming that the Kerala police had recovered only the lost property reported by Madurai city police from the accused, whose description was given by eyewitnesses, the Kerala police should hand over the property and the accused to the Tamil Nadu police, said M. Thirunavukarasu, president of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court Advocates’ Association. The police officers said “they were perplexed” as the issue had now taken a “new dimension” from a legal point of view.
