The Coimbatore District Sessions Court on Wednesday granted the ‘Q’ Branch Police ten days custody of the five persons, suspected to be Maoists.
District Sessions Judge in-charge M.P. Subramaniam granted the custody of Roopesh, his wife Shyna, C. Kannan, J. Anoop and C. Veeramani based on a petition filed by the investigation officer in the case, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Q Branch, C. Sethupathi.
The ‘Q’ Branch Police had arrested the five from an eatery in Karumathampatti on Monday evening on charges of plotting armed struggle and had invoked Sections 124 (A) (sedition), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 20 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
In their petition, the police said that they had to interrogate the five to know the whereabouts of the other members of their organisation, the extent of their network, their plans for armed struggle, the explosives in their possession and other related details.
Opposing the plea for police custody, advocates S. Balamurugan and Mohammad Abubacker said the court did not have the jurisdiction to hear the petition as the Central government, under the provisions of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act, had constituted a special court with a State-wide jurisdiction for the purpose and the court in Poonamalle was the competent court.
They also argued that the idea behind seeking the five persons’ custody was to frame them under more serious charges. There was nothing more for the police to learn and recover from the five as they claimed to have recovered Maoist literature, pen drives and mobile phones based on a confession statement they claimed to have had. The police in Coimbatore also had the track record of killing in encounter the accused in their custody.
Overruling the objections, the Judge granted the custody saying that an advocate, Murugan, should be allowed to meet for 15 minutes the five accused on all the 10 days.
