The Judicial First Class Magistrate Court here on Saturday remanded Sunil Kumar Surendran aka Pulsar Suni and V.P. Vijesh, key accused in the abduction and sexual harassment of an actor in a moving car, to police custody till March 5.
Considering a petition filed by the Special Investigation Team on February 24 seeking their custody for 10 days, the court granted custody till March 5.
The police told the court that Suni’s custody would be required to bring out the conspiracy behind the incident, recover his mobile phone with SIM card, and to take him to Coimbatore and other places for collecting evidence. The police cited the need to conduct a lie-detection test on the duo.
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Earlier, confusion prevailed over who would represent the prime accused as two lawyers were engaged by Suni. While S. Krishnakumar retained the right to represent Suni, counsel E.C. Paulose argued the case of Vijesh.
Later in the day, the victim identified four of the accused — Manikandan, Martin, Salim, and Pradeep — during an identification parade held at the Aluva sub jail in the evening. The parade was conducted in the presence of the Judicial First Class Magistrate, Aluva, who would file a report on the same with the Judicial First Class Magistrate, Angamaly.
The victim arrived by 3 p.m. and identified all four accused. Thereafter, she went to the Aluva police club to give further statements before the investigation team, sources said.
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As part of the investigation, the police raided a home at Kadavanthra reportedly visited by Suni soon after the abduction and the subsequent release of the actor. During the raid, the police recovered a couple of SIM cards, memory cards and a tab. The police also took a person into custody.
Meanwhile, the investigators would soon probe the three women with whom Suni had reportedly maintained a close relationship.
An investigation team has left for Coimbatore in search of a person who reportedly handed over Suni a mobile phone and arranged SIM cards on fake addresses. The police suspect this person of making all arrangements for Suni to skip the police net till his arrest from a court room.
The police had also failed to find out how the accused managed to procure a Pulsar bike, which they rode all the way from Coimbatore to Kochi.