Kalpnath Rai arrested; BJP MP surrenders
Former federal minister Kalpnath Rai, who was arrested by the
Central Bureau of Investigation early this morning, was sent to
Tihar jail where he will remain till February 25. He has been
charged under the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities Prevention
Act for allegedly harbouring six gunmen owing allegiance to the
Dubai-based fugitive gangster, Dawood Ibrahim.
Rai was picked up from his official residence, 36, Aurangazeb
Road, in New Delhi at 0400 hours this morning. The arrest was as per a non-bailable warrant issued by Additional Sessions Judge S N Dingra.
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Brij Bhushan Saran Singh, against whom
a similar warrant has been issued, surrendered in Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, this morning.
Like another former minister H K L Bhagat, who is also imprisoned in Tihar, Rai has filed an application, saying he suffers from blood pressure and piles, and needs medical attention immediately.
Rai is charged with harbouring six hitmen at the National Thermal
Power Corporation guesthouse in south Delhi in 1993. The six,
who allegiance to Ibrahim, have been identified as Subash Thakur,
Jayendra Thakur, Shyam Kishore Garikapati, Chandrakant Patil,
Paresh Desai and Mohammad Ahmed Mansoor.
Rai, in a statement, has said he is innocent.
The CBI had, in April 1994, first filed chargesheets against the
six gangsters. Later that year, the investigating agency filed
further charges against Rai and Brijbhushan Saran Singh, and also
their secretaries, S P Rai and Sanjay Singh.
This makes the second CBI chargesheet against Rai, the first having
been filed on January 16 in the hawala case. Rai is not,
sources indicated, likely to be arrested in the hawala
case, however.
The former federal minister has been charged under Section 3 (IV)
of TADA, which became defunct last year. However, though the act
has been repealed, cases can still be booked under its provisions
if they pertain to a period when TADA was in force.
Meanwhile, the Congress party said that action would be taken against Rai whenever justified. "We have already said that the law will take its course," party spokesman V N Gadgil told journalists today.
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