HYDERABAD: The three accused arrested for their role in the poachgate scandal provided varying answers to questions posed by the police on the first day of the investigation, sources said. The investigation officials, however, remained tight-lipped about the course of their questioning.
The special investigation team on Thursday grilled for over seven hours, from 9 am to 5 pm, the three accused in the scam, in which four MLAs of the TRS were allegedly offered bribes and threatened to defect to another political party.
The questioning took place at the Rajendra Nagar ACP office, with the trio taken into police custody from the Chanchalguda Jail amid tight security.
Sources identified the accused as Ramachandra Bharati alias Satish Sharma, a priest from Faridabad of Haryana, Simhayaji, a pontiff from Tirupati and Nandakumar, a restaurant owner in Hyderabad. They are alleged to have tried to lure the MLAs from the TRS to join the BJP.
Investigating officers questioned the accused separately to corroborate one another’s version of events and recorded their statements in their lawyers’ presence.
Sources said that there were discrepancies in the answers given by the trio to the questions posed by the investigators. The police have prepared a questionnaire with more than 40 queries, they said.
“There were alleged discrepancies in the answers given by the trio to some of the questions asked by the cops. They quizzed them separately during the first round of questioning about the main conspirator, motive, and source of the money. During the second round of questioning, they were grilled together. Officials are also trying to corroborate their versions with the scientific evidence found at the crime scene. Efforts will be on to retrieve more information from the accused on Friday,” a source said.
The questioning follows directions from the Telangana High Court to the police to probe the matter. An SIT headed by police commissioner C.V. Anand and comprising six other officials, is looking into the case.
The three accused were arrested from a farmhouse at Moinabad near Hyderabad on the night of October 26, when they were allegedly trying to lure four MLAs of TRS with offers of huge money. Cyberabad police conducted a raid on a tip-off from Pilot Rohit Reddy, one of the MLAs. He alleged that the accused offered him `100 crore and `50 crore each to the three others.
