AP CID sleuths grill Naidu in Central prison

Vijayawada: AP-CID officials grilled Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu for several hours in connection with AP skill development scam of Rs 371 crore inside the Central prison in Rajahmundry amidst tight security on Saturday.

As the ACB court had granted custody of Naidu to the CID for two days on Friday but had imposed certain norms like conducting inquiry only from 9.30 am to 5 pm in a day in the presence of advocates from both the parties, no usage of third degree measures and no leakage of information pertaining to the inquiry both audio and video tapes and recording the entire procedure, a team of investigation agency officials belonging to the economic offence wing, led by CID DSP M. Dhanunjayudu, arrived at the prison by 9.45 am and started questioning Naidu on his role in the scam.

Following strict directions from the ACB court, the officials remained tight-lipped about the outcome of the questioning, which was in the presence of Naidu’s counsel Dammalapati Srinivas.

On the conclusion of the second day questioning on Sunday, the agency has to hand over Naidu to the ACB court, which, in turn, will hold a video conference with him and take the next decision. There are chances that if the CID is not satisfied with Naidu’s answers, it may ask for further custody.

Moreover, as the ACB court is to hear Naidu’s bail plea on Monday and the Supreme Court likely to hear Naidu’s plea challenging AP High Court order of dismissing his FIR quash petition, it will be quite interesting to see how things will unfold.

In addition to it, two more petitions pertaining to anomalies in alignment of inner ring road at Amaravati and siphoning of funds in AP Fibernet phase-1 project, whose scam is to the tune of Rs 114 crore, are also to come up for hearing in the High Court.

It may be recalled that after the CID arrested Naidu in Nandyal on September 9, and grilled him in the SIT office at Vijayawada, the officials complained that he was not cooperating with them.