Union Minister M.K. Alagiri’s son Durai Dhayanidhi, who was absconding for more than four months, surrendered before the Judicial Magistrate in Melur near here on Friday to avail of the anticipatory bail granted by the Madras High Court Bench here four days ago.
Accompanied by a large number of advocates and party functionaries, Mr. Durai arrived at the magistrate court around 10.30 am. After appearing before the Judicial Magistrate, Jayakumar, he waited in his car for more than an hour to execute his bail bond. He executed a personal security of Rs 10,000 and surrendered his passport. The Judicial Magistrate directed Mr. Durai to appear daily from Saturday at Keelavalavu police station near Melur in compliance with High Court orders.
Mr. Alagiri also accompanied his son to Melur to complete the court formalities. However, he chose to stay at the MP’s office at Melur, which is near to the court.
ADVERTISEMENT
“The cases against my son are fabricated with a political motive. If any case is registered in future, we are ready to face them,” said Mr. Alagiri.
Originally, the Keelavalavu police have registered cases against Mr. Durai under various IPC sections, including 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 447 (criminal trespass) and 420 (cheating) after the Village Administrative Officer of Keelavalavu filed a complaint alleging that Olympus Granites had quarried granite illegally on government land, thereby causing a loss of Rs. 44 crore to the State’s exchequer.
Mr. Durai was reportedly the partner of Olympus Granites from 2008 to 2010. He was absconding ever since he was booked along with ten persons in connection with his alleged involvement in the multicrore illegal granite quarrying scam, on August 7, 2012.
ADVERTISEMENT
Since then several special teams were constituted to find his whereabouts, but in vain. The immigration department was alerted to prevent Mr. Durai from fleeing the country and lookout notices were issued against him, besides a non-bailable warrant.
In October, Mr Durai’s wife Anusha Dhayanidhi, his actor friend Mahat Raghavendra, Mrs Anusha’s father Seetharaman and Mr Alagiri's sons-in-law Venkatesh and Deepak were interrogated by Madurai police. However, they told the police that they did not know Mr. Durai’s whereabouts.
In the meantime, Mr. Durai moved the High Court Bench here to obtain anticipatory bail.
After a failed attempt in September, he obtained anticipatory bail from the Madurai High Court Bench on December 10.
Olympus Granites was one of the firms against which the government initiated a crackdown after former Madurai collector U. Sahayam, in a report, estimated the losses incurred from illegal granite mining around Rs. 16,000 crore.