The police filed a petition in a metropolitan magistrate court in George Town court complex seeking five-day custodial interrogation of the former Minister and AIADMK leader D. Jayakumar, who was on Monday night arrested on charges of assaulting a DMK partyman, forcing him to remove his shirt and parading him in public during civic elections held on Saturday.
Filing a petition, the investigation officer said the complainant, R. Naresh Kumar, 33, a DMK cadre of Old Washermenpet, said in his complaint that he was standing near Kamaraj Matriculation School, on Sanjeevarayan Koil Street, and observing the peaceful progress of polling. The complainant alleged that the former Minister and 40 others forcibly entered the polling booth and he was abused by them when he questioned them. They launched murderous attack on him although he was running for his life.
The former Minister and others caught him and caused grievous injury to him. The AIADMK cadre then tied his hands using the shirt and paraded him in public as if he was a murder accused, the complainant alleged. He said he was rescued by his friends and later admitted in Government Stanley Hospital. On his complaint, the police arrested the former Minister.
Seeking custodial interrogation, the investigation officer said the accused himself circulated the video of parading Mr. Kumar on social media and said the custodial interrogation was necessary to find out the whereabouts of the other accused and to gather electronic evidence from the accused.
A. Natarajan, senior advocate who appeared for the former Minister, vehemently objected to the custody petition stating that it was not required in this case. After hearing the arguments, the magistrate said that the petition for custodial interrogation could be decided only on Friday since the investigation officer of the case should depose before the court with justifications for what purpose the custody was required in this case. The Magistrate said that the former Minister should be produced in the court on Friday.
