Three days after the formal arrest of AIADMK Deputy General Secretary TTV Dinakaran on charges of allegedly offering a bribe of Rs 50 crore to retain the two leaves party symbol, the case currently being handled by the Delhi Police Crime Branch is likely to be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), highly-placed sources said.
A day after the sleuths of Delhi Police Crime Branch under the supervision of ACP of Inter State Cell Sanjay Sehrawat took TTV Dinakaran, Mallikarjuna and Sukesh to Chennai to gathering more evidence, police on Friday arrested Naresh, an alleged hawala operator from the Delhi airport and also detained Nathu Singh in connection with the bribery case.
On Friday, police reached Besant Nagar, residence of Dinakaran to collect incriminating evidence. Apart from that, they also raided his office in Karpagam Nagar. “Dinakaran’s close acquaintance, a retired Government officer was also questioned at Mannargudi in Tamil Nadu. Apart from this, wife of Dinakaran, Anuradha and his Personal Assistant (PA) Janardhan were questioned at length at the Rajaji Nagar guest house,” highly placed sources told The Pioneer.
The investigating team has been able to establish the link between Sukesh Chandrashekhar, the alleged middleman and TTV Dhinakaran based on their call detail recordings. On sustained questioning which went on for three consecutive days, the Crime Branch had formally put Dinakaran along with his associate Mallikarjuna under arrest on Tuesday night.
Following which, police had sought five days police custody of Dinakaran.
Since the investigating team is digging the money trail not from one but multiple locations such as Kochi, Chennai, Bengaluru, it has become difficult for the team to handle the case. With names of top leaders of AIADMK in the bribery case, there are several agencies such as local police of the States of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu which are also investigating the role of Sukesh Chandrashekhar against whom several cases of cheating have been registered.
In order to ensure that the bribery case pertaining to the two leaves symbol is investigated thoroughly, the Delhi Police is mulling to hand it over to the CBI. Moreover, with the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking a regular updated report from the Delhi Police, the case is likely to be transferred to the central investigative agency.