New Delhi, September 28
Senior IPS officer of Haryana cadre Ravi Kant Sharma, prime suspect in journalist Shivani Bhatnagar murder case who surrendered in an Ambala court yesterday after eluding the police for nearly two months, was today remanded in 10-day police custody by a Delhi court.

Metropolitan Magistrate J.P. Narain sent the suspended Haryana Inspector-General (Prisons), who was produced in a jampacked courtroom after being brought to the Capital from Ambala on a transit remand by a Delhi police team, to 10 days’ police custody as the prosecution claimed that he was the architect of the murder, which was executed by hired killers.

Amid the tightest-ever security arrangements around the Karkardooma court complex in East Delhi, Sharma was brought to the courtroom with the police throwing a ring of security personnel around him and deploying several in plain clothes to keep onlookers at bay. Hundreds of onlookers gathered outside the sprawling courts in the Capital’s east end when the news spread about his arrival there.

Seeking 14-day police remand, the special public prosecutor said the hired killers took away certain documents relating to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) from Shivani’s house and the police wanted to interrogate Sharma to know how these documents landed in her flat. When the murder was committed he was posted at the PMO.

Sharma had been evading arrest since August 3 after proceeding on 10 days leave following the arrest of another key suspect in the case, Shri Bhagwan on July 30 in connection with the case.

While on the run, Sharma had sought bails from lower courts in Panchkula and Delhi besides the Delhi High Court, all of which were rejected. He surrendered yesterday in the Court of Ambala Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ms Sarita Gupta, who remanded him in judicial custody till October 10.

Earlier, lensmen and television crew jostled with one another to take a shot of Sharma as he arrived at the court at 4 p.m. in a Tata Safari with tinted glasses. The cavalcade also included an ambulance.

Sharma told the court that “the police was spreading rumour that I had fled to a foreign country just to humiliate me. But the truth was that I was seeking judicial remedy. To call me an absconder was nonsense. I have been hounded and harassed.”

Counsel for Sharma, said the police was seeking custodial interrogation only to humiliate his client as he had earlier been interrogated and even subjected to a polygraph test.

He contended that “the police needs to interrogate him regarding the payments made to the contract killers and recover other documents relating to the murder.”

Meanwhile, a Delhi court today issued warrants to the Haryana Police to produce Ved Sharma, accused in the Shivani murder case and presently undergoing 10 years’ imprisonment in a rape case in a Gurgaon jail.

Metropolitan Magistrate J.P. Narain directed the Gurgaon jail authorities to produce Ved Sharma on Monday following an application moved by the Delhi police crime branch in this regard.

The city police had obtained his production warrant last month but had not produced him as they were yet to lay hands on R.K. Sharma. The Delhi police today also secured Sharma’s transit remand from the Ambala court.