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CBI witness in JMM case alleges torture

A key Central Bureau of Investigation witness in the JMM MPs bribery case today told the trial court that he was tortured by the investigating officer and forced to make a statement against his wishes.

Retracting most parts of his purported statement to the CBI, K Narayanan, resident manager of Mohan Breweries, told the court of additional sessions judge Ajit Bharihoke that ''this matter (statement) was written by me on the suggested lines of the CBI while I was kept in custody and tortured. I was bleeding through my nose. Arun Sinha, superintendent of police, had slapped me left and right and obtained the statement.''

According to the CBI, Narayanan was in charge of a company guest house at C-796, New Friends Colony, New Delhi, where Bangalore-based liquor baron D K Adikeshavalu, an accused in the case, used to stay sometimes during his visit to the capital.

The witness had purportedly given a statement to the CBI to the effect that one of his subordinates had seen the bribe money allegedly brought by Adikeshavalu from Bangalore to be paid to opposition MPs who had voted against the July 28, 1993 no-confidence motion against the then government of Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao.

''I was tortured between October 28, 1996 and November 4, 1996,'' the witness told the court during his examination by the CBI.

narayanan told the court that he had not complained about the alleged torture by the CBI to any authority because he had no proof. He replied in the negative to a question whether he at least had him medically examined. However, he had reported the matter to his managing director Nand Gopal.

The witness also denied a suggestion that Adikeshavalu had given him Rs 49,000 to ensure the absconding of a guest house staff who was wanted by the CBI for interrogation.

He, however, admitted that the Rs 49,000, seized from him by the CBI in 1996, had been given by Adikeshavalu for making the travel arrangements of the accused.

At one stage, he denied that Adikeshavalu was staying at the guest house on October 28, 1996 when CBI officials visited there, but subsequently he said the accused had given him the money on that day at the guest house.

Two of the four CBI witnesses examined on Thursday turned hostile, retracting their earlier statements. With this 61 of the about 250 witnesses in the case have been examined.

Among the 20 accused in the case are Narasimha Rao and his then cabinet colleagues Buta Singh and Satish Sharma, and former chief ministers M Veerappa Moily of Karnataka and Bhajan Lal of Haryana.

The second witness who turned hostile was Chelvaraju, an arrack contractor and a managing partner of the Ranganatha group, believed to be a sister concern of accused M Thimme Gowda, another liquor baron from Bangalore.

Chelvaraju denied that he had paid Rs 6.5 million to Thimme Gowda in July 1993. He said he had withdrawn the money from the bank to meet his own business commitments.

The other witnesses examined were D B Desai, retired additional superintendent of police, and Canara Bank chief manager Padmanabha Rao. The latter was examined in connection with his statement about the withdrawal of Rs 10 million from his branch in Bangalore, allegedly as part of the efforts to mobilise the bribe money.

UNI

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