The Hindu : Karnataka News : `I was made a scapegoat to protect Baig'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 09, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

`I was made a scapegoat to protect Baig'

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, JULY 8. A retired police officer arrested by the CBI on Wednesday alleged before a city court on Thursday that he had been made a scapegoat in the multi-crore stamp paper racket by the former Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, and other important personalities to "protect" the former Minister, R. Roshan Baig.

The former Assistant Commissioner of Police, T.G. Sangram Singh, told the First Additional City Metropolitan Magistrate Court that Mr. Krishna, his son-in-law, Siddarath, the Union Minister for Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs, Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Water Resources and Transport Minister, M. Mallikarjun Kharge, and the former Minister, D.K. Shivakumar, had made him a scapegoat to ``protect'' Mr. Baig who was a member of Mr. Krishna's Cabinet.

Mr. Singh, who made a suo motu statement, also alleged that he had visited Chennai twice and paid Rs. 20 crores to "Rajnikant's manager." But he did not specify when he visited Chennai, why he paid the money, and from where he had got it.

However, before being taken into the court hall, Mr. Singh told presspersons that he had paid Rs. 20 crores to forest brigand Veerappan allegedly at the behest of Mr. Krishna, Mr. Shivakumar, the former Additional Director-General of Police (Intelligence), P.S. Ramanujam, and the Deputy Inspector-General of Police (Intelligence), T. Jayaprakash.

Dr. Ramanujam and Mr. Jayaprakash were holding those posts when Veerappan kidnapped the Kannada thespian, Rajkumar, in July 2001. Dr. Ramanujam has retired, and Mr. Jayaprakash is now the Inspector-General of Police (Intelligence).

Mr. Singh and the two former police officials, Vali Basha and V.A. Khan, who were also arrested by the CBI on Wednesday, told the court that they were badly treated by the CBI officials on Wednesday night. "We were not given proper food and were made to sleep on newspapers spread on the floor," they said.

The Magistrate, V.H. Sambrani, directed the CBI officials to follow the Supreme Court guidelines on treating those in police custody. The Magistrate remanded Mr. Singh, Mr. Basha and Mr. Khan in CBI custody till 4 p.m. on July 13.

The CBI has arrested the three former police officials on charges of conniving with Abdul Kareem Telgi, the alleged kingpin of the stamp paper scam, and subverting investigations after accepting "illegal gratifications" from him when they were posted to the City Market police station during 1997-98.

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