Six days after the tonsuring of a 20-year-old Dalit youth, the Visakhapatnam city police arrested Nutan Naidu, known for his participation in a TV reality show, in connection with the case in Karnataka. He allegedly tried to impersonate a retired IAS officer, P.V. Ramesh, to protect his wife, who is the prime accused in the case, police said.
On August 29, Pendurthi police arrested his wife and six others for allegedly beating, abusing and tonsuring the youth, their former employee, a day before in their house at Sujatha Nagar.
Commissioner of Police Manish Kumar Sinha told the media here on Friday that the CCTV footage showed that on the day of tonsuring, Nutan Naidu had made video calls to his wife Priya Madhuri twice from Hyderabad. Mr. Naidu had abused and threatened the youth.
Mr. Sinha said on August 29 a person who identified himself as retired IAS officer P.V. Ramesh had made phone calls to some medical officers, the Principal of the Andhra Medical College (AMC) and in-charge of the KGH, Dr. P.V. Sudhakar, and two others and asked them to refer Priya Madhuri to hospital under health grounds.
“Suspecting something fishy, Dr. Sudhakar contacted Mr. Ramesh directly. Later, the former IAS officer himself called me and informed that someone was using his name,” Mr. Sinha said.
Nutan Naidu also used some apps to set his name as chief secretary of Andhra Pradesh, AP CMO, the city police chief said.
On the run
After the incident, Nutan Naidu had left for Bengaluru and then to Mangalore. However, acting on a tip-off, he was taken into custody at Udipi with the help of the Karnataka police.
“While he was being taken into custody, Naidu tried to throw away his mobile phone which he used to impersonate the retired officer. When we compared CDR, the phone numbers matched,” Mr. Sinha said, adding that the accused was produced before a magistrate and would be brought to Visakhapatnam soon.
The Police Commissioner said that the accused had impersonated a few more officials and investigation was on into it. He said any person having complaints against Nutan Naidu should approach the police.
