New Delhi: A court in Delhi Thursday extended the police custody of four individuals arrested for the security breach in Lok Sabha on 13 December, namely Manoranjan D., Sagar Sharma, Amol Shinde and Neelam Azad.
All four were produced by the Delhi Police Special Cell, which is probing the case, before Additional Sessions Judge Justice Hardeep Kaur who accepted the Special Cell’s request for 15-day remand.
Public Prosecutor Advocate Akhand Pratap Singh briefed the judge about headway made in the probe and what investigating officers found over the last week, without revealing specific details citing the “sensitivity” of the case.
Calling the case “not normal”, he said Delhi Police have sought a 15-day extension of remand to “collect entire evidence” in the case and to trace the roots of the alleged conspiracy. Singh further urged the judge to see the whole context such as the date of the attack and planning in “totality”.
Police sources suggested that the court was apprised of the fact that the accused were taken to Mysore in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Haryana, Lucknow and Mumbai and that “incriminating material” was recovered.
The judge also approved the Special Cell’s request to clone the SIM cards used by the accused since they had destroyed their own mobile phones.
Apart from these four accused, two others — Lalit Jha and Mahesh Kumawat — are also in police custody for seven days and are likely to be produced in the same court with a request for further extension of custody.
Earlier Thursday, ThePrint reported that Delhi Police detained a techie from Bengaluru, who was a batchmate and roommate of accused Manoranjan D. in college, for questioning.
“Police have recovered four burnt mobile phones and based on that recovery, they have sought extension of police custody to conduct psychological analysis, social media analysis and face to face confrontation and separate interrogation,” advocate Umakant Kataria, who represented the accused as a court-appointed defence counsel.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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