Nitish writes to Gowda over arrest of Kafil

Karnataka police had claimed that had they informed Bihar police, the suspect would have been tipped off

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has lodged a protest with his Karnataka counterpart D V Sadanand Gowda over the manner of arrest of a terror suspect from Bihar saying it was a 'violation of the rule of law'.

Nitish wrote to Gowda that what the Karnataka police had done was a complete violation of the rule of law. “What has been done by the police officers of Karnataka (in the arrest of Akhtar) is an example of violation of the rule of law. There should be no apprehension in the minds of any visiting police officer of any state about the professional integrity and commitment of senior police officials in Darbhanga,” Nitish said in the letter.

The Bihar CM’s reaction comes close on the heels of Karnataka police claiming that they did not inform Bihar cops as there was possibility that the suspect would have been intimated about his possible arrest and eventually he would have fled.

Deccan Herald carried a report on May 12 which said that police of a Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state came to a NDA-ruled State, arrested a terror-suspect without informing the Bihar police and eventually the apprehended man was produced before a magistrate in the third State, which is, incidentally, a BJP-ruled one.

Inappropriate

“At the outset, I must concede that we have nothing to say on the details of the FIR of terror incidents that occurred on April 17, 2010, and subsequent investigations conducted,” said Nitish. It was inappropriate on the part of the Karnataka police in not taking Bihar cops into confidence before making the arrest.

There was every possibility of a breach of law and the move could have “endangered the safety and security of visiting police officers themselves,” an anguished Nitish wrote to Gowda.

Nitish’s angst stems from the fact that recently at the NCTC meeting in New Delhi, he had vehemently opposed the Centre’s move to give unbridled powers to the Intelligence Bureau to make arrests without taking state government into confidence. “Such draconian laws could be a serious setback to the federal structure of the country,” he had pointed out last week.