In a courtroom drama at high noon that unfolded like a movie script, police in Kochi arrested two of the key accused in last week’s waylaying and attack on a popular Malayalam film actress.

The drama unfolded when the accused came to the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court in Kochi to surrender.

Six days after their attack on the actress, the two accused, ‘Pulsar’ Suni and K.P. Vijeesh made a dramatic entry into the courtroom on Thursday, arriving by a two-wheeler, scaling the rear compound wall of the court and sprinting up to the first floor of the court building.

Fortuitously for the state police force, when the accused arrived, the court was having its official lunch break, though the magistrate was in his chamber.

Seizing the opportunity, a posse of policemen who had been camping around the court for days expecting the surrender of the accused, forcibly took them away into a police vehicle and the two were spirited away for questioning at the Aluva Police Club

The defence lawyers and several other lawyers protested the police action, saying it was illegal to forcibly take away and arrest accused persons who had surrendered in court.

“The accused were in the courtroom, and we had submitted the surrender application. The magistrate said he would either hear the petition in the chamber or in the open court. It was then that the police forcibly took them away”, said defence lawyer Krishna Kumar.

Congress leader P.T. Thomas MLA said the manner of the arrests of the two accused was illegal and that the director-general of police should resign, taking blame for the style in which the accused were dragged out from court, to uphold the dignity of the police force.

DGP Loknath Behera, however, said police had acted “sincerely”, and refused to comment on the legal aspects of arresting an accused from within court premises.

Dub artiste and social activist Bhagyalakshmi said she was happy that the accused were now in police custody and said she had “started to appreciate police functioning in the state”.

Police now have 24 hours to produce the two accused before a magistrate, a luxury they would not have got if the two had managed to officially turn themselves in before the court

source : gulfnews