New Delhi: The crackdown in the corporate espionage case led to the arrest of another person today for allegedly possessing “secret” documents of various ministries, bringing the number of those in police net to 13 even as four accused alleged they were forced to sign on blank papers. The fresh arrest was of Lokesh, working in a Noida-based consultancy firm, from whose possession “sensitive” documents pertaining to ministries of Coal, Power and others were allegedly recovered, police told a Delhi court. He was produced in Dwarka court before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Satish Kumar Arora who remanded him to five days police custody on the ground that he has to be quizzed to unearth the conspiracy and for arresting others associated with him in the case.
The other four accused, who were arrested earlier in the case relating to leakage of documents from Petroleum Ministry, were produced in Patiala House court before Metropolitan Magistrate (MM) Dheeraj Mittal who remanded them to judicial custody till March 6. During the hearing before the MM, accused Lalta Prasad, Rakesh Kumar, Prayas Jain and Shantanu Saikia claimed that they were forced to sign on blank papers by the police during their custodial interrogation.
“We have been made to sign on blank papers. What is going on ?” said Saikia while being escorted to the courtroom in police custody. “I never did what is alleged against me. I have been a journalist for past 30 years and I have been victimised,” he told reporters. They were produced before the court after expiry of their police custody and Crime Branch of Delhi Police moved a plea before the magistrate saying they be sent to 11-day judicial custody as they were not required for further interrogation at this stage.
