New Delhi, May 5
Taking forward investigations in the Railway Board bribery case, the CBI on Sunday effected two more arrests, taking the total number of those taken into custody to eight, including now suspended Railway Board member, Mahesh Kumar and Vijay Singla, nephew of Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal.

Rahul Yadav and Samir Sandhir, residents of Delhi and who allegedly were conduits for businessman Narayan Rao Manjunath, were arrested by the CBI.

By evening, the CBI had custody of seven of the eight accused, with a Delhi court granting permission till May 7 to interrogate Manjunath, who was brought to Delhi from Bangalore, Rahul and Samir.

Both Yadav and Sandhir are among the eight named by the CBI in the FIR it registered on Friday. While Yadav was picked up on Saturday night, Sandhir was taken into custody today, CBI sources said.

On Saturday, the CBI court permitted custody of the four accused, including Singla, Sandeep Goyal, Dharmendra Kumar and Vivek Kumar, the two courier boys, till May 8.

The agency plans to produce the suspended Railway Board member Mahesh Kumar before the Special Court and seek his formal custody on Monday, sources said.

Of the eight accused in the FIR, but not yet apprehended are Ajay Garg of Chandigarh and Sushil Daga, a resident of Faridabad. CBI sources told The Tribune that investigators are on the look-out for these two persons. The agency will seek to establish the sequence of events in the case in which the CBI alleged that Narayan Rao Manjunath, Managing Director of the Bangalore-based G G Tronics India Private Limited, had arranged to pay a sum of Rs 90 lakh on behalf of Mahesh Kumar allegedly to Panchkula resident Goyal, which was taken into custody by the CBI team when it conducted raids at Chandigarh.

The CBI is expected to conduct individual questioning. The agency will then confront the key accused with others in order to firm up its case in which it charged them with criminal conspiracy and various sections under the Prevention of Corruption Act.