A magistrate court here on Friday allowed the Crime Branch (CB) to take into custody for further interrogation two Mangalam TV journalists arrested on Tuesday on the charge of airing an audio sex tape targeting former Transport Minister A.K. Saseendran.
Channel chief executive officer R. Ajith Kumar and news ‘investigation team’ leader R. Jayachandran, alias S. Narayanan, were brought to the court under tight police security from the sub-jail where they were housed as remand prisoners.
A group of lawyers loudly rebuked Ajith outside the court complex for his purported comments against the Thiruvananthapuram Bar Association in a prime time television talk show. They also directed their ire at the accused when they occupied the chairs meant for lawyers in the court room. Police officers formed a security ring around the suspects to protect them from being manhandled. Journalists were turned away from reporting the court proceedings.
The Crime Branch said the custody of the suspects were imperative for recovering the laptops, mobile phones and other electronic devices ‘containing’ the ‘unedited’ version of the sordid conversation.
Investigators wanted to identify the scene of crime and unravel the conspiracy that led to the resignation of Mr. Saseendran on March 26. The custody of the accused would help the agency identify more players, if any, in the crime and also trace its ‘financiers.’
The agency was also relying on the call data record analysis of the mobile phones of the suspects to identify their regular contacts in a bid to trace the contours of the plot that also cast the 71-year-old legislator under a cloud of suspicion.
Lawyers V.S. Vineet Kumar and S. Chandrasekharan Nair told the court that they were hard-pressed to the move for bail applications for the accused because the High Court was seized of the matter. They said the CB had interviewed the accused for nearly a day after their surrender and further custody was not required. The custody period of the accused would end on Sunday noon.
