Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, arrested on Wednesday from his Lower Parel house in connection with a 2018 case of abetment to suicide, spent the night at a local school which has been designated as a Covid-19 centre for the Alibag prison, an official said on Thursday. A court at Alibag in Maharashtra’s Raigad district on Wednesday remanded Goswami and two other accused in judicial custody till November 18 in a 2018 abetment to suicide case.
Here is what happened on Wednesday:
* A team of Raigad police picked up the 47-year-old journalist from his Lower Parel house in Mumbai on Wednesday morning. He claimed that he was being assaulted by the police.
* He was then taken to Alibag, around 90 km from Mumbai, and was produced in a court.
* The hearing went on till late night on Wednesday. Police had sought Goswami’s custody for 14 days, but the court held that custodial interrogation was not required.
* The other two arrested accused in the case, Feroze Mohammed Shaikh and Nitesh Sarda, were also produced in the Alibaug court on Wednesday and remanded to judicial custody till November 18.
* On Wednesday night, Goswami was taken for medical examination at a state-run hospital in the coastal town.
* After the medical exam, he was taken to Alibag Nagar Parishad School, which is designated as a Covid-19 centre of the Alibag prison, and he spent the night there.
* The court dismissed Goswami’s complaint that he was assaulted. Meanwhile, the Mumbai Police filed a fresh FIR against Goswami, his wife, son and two others for “obstructing, assaulting, verbally abusing and intimidating” a police officer on duty and for tearing up “government papers” (arrest intimation) at his house. The FIR was registered at the N M Joshi Marg police station on Wednesday under sections 353, 504, 506 of IPC and section 3 of the Damage of Public Property Act.
What’s next for Arnab Goswami
*Arnab Goswami’s bail plea will be heard by the Alibag court.
* Goswami had on November 2 filed a petition in the Bombay High Court seeking to quash the FIR in the case. It will be heard by a division bench of Justices S S Shinde and M S Karnik on Thursday.
