After two days of suspense and high drama, the Andhra Pradesh police at last got the clearance for the arrest of Bihar-cadre IPS officer M Sunil Naik in connection with the alleged custodial torture case involving state assembly deputy speaker K Raghu Ramakrishna Raju.
A mobile court in Guntur on Thursday issued a a non-bailable arrest warrant against Sunil Naik, who is presently inspector general of police in Bihar’s prisons department.
Following the court order, Andhra Pradesh Police have initiated efforts to locate and arrest the officer. Sources said soon after the report of the Guntur court issuing the arrest warrant, Sunil Naik switched off his phone and went underground.
On Monday, the Andhra Pradesh police went to Patna to arrest Sunil Naik, after the latter failed respond to repeated summons to appear for questioning in the RRR custodial torture case.
On Tuesday, they approached a local court in Bihar seeking transit warrant to take Sunil Naik to Andhra Pradesh for questioning.
However, the Patna court rejected the Andhra police’s plea on the ground that there was no arrest warrant and there were other procedural lapses.
On Wednesday, the Andhra police moved the Guntur court seeking issuance of arrest warrant against Sunil Naik. Accordingly, they got the non-bailable arrest warrant on Thursday.
Naik, who served on deputation as the DIG of the A.P. Crime Investigation Department (CID) at that time, was named as Accused No. 7 in the case registered in the Nagarampalem police station in Guntur district.
