Wrestler Sushil Kumar arrested; sent to 6-day police custody

New Delhi: After being on the run since since May 4 when he and his associates were allegedly involved in brutally killing a 23-year-old former junior national wrestling champion Sagar Dhankar inside the Chhatrasal Stadium and injuring others, a team of Delhi Police Special Cell, in the wee hours of Sunday, managed to arrest two-time Olympic champion Sushil Kumar and his aide from Outer Delhi's Mundka area.

Along with Kumar, a team of Special Cell, Northern Range, also nabbed one Ajay Kumar, who worked as a physical education teacher at the stadium. Some of Sushil's co-accused are still at large.

Both Sushil and Ajay were produced before a Duty Magistrate's court and were subsequently sent to 6 days' police custody.

Kumar was booked under the sections of murder at the Model Town Police Station after he along with his associates got involved in a brawl at the Chhatrasal Stadium with members of a different group, which subsequently led to 23-year-old Dhankar succumbing to his injuries at a hospital.

As per police, Kumar and his associates allegedly thrashed Dhankar, one Sonu, and some of their friends, with sticks and iron rods inside the stadium premises. Dhankar and his friends were living at Kumar's wife's rented accommodation but soon left the place without paying a month's due.

Sushil allegedly changed locations across states during his time evading arrest and had travelled to states like Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana before he along with Ajay came back to Delhi and were eventually nabbed.

Both Sushil and Ajay are also said to have changed several SIM cards since they went absconding in order to prevent phone tracing, as per police, who had carried out multiple raids in Punjab over the past few days.

In her order allowing a 6-day-police custody of Kumar, Duty Metropolitan Magistrate Divya Malhotra, while noting that "no one is above law" and that "the importance of initial days of investigation for unearthing the truth need not be overemphasized", ruled that the allegations against both the accused were "grave in nature". "Involvement of large number of persons, some of which are stated to be belonging to some notorious gangs stationed outside Delhi is also suspected and they are yet to be arrested," the order read.

During the hearing, the Delhi Police, represented by Additional Public Prosecutor Atul Shrivastava, argued that police needed 12 days' custody in order to "unearth the chain of conspiracy" surrounding the incident.

The APP told the court that the role of all the accused persons needs to be established and that the persons who are still evading arrest are those with "criminal antecedents". "The accused (Sushil) had taken the help of one Yashoda gang in order to carry out the murder…" the prosecutor submitted.

Shrivastava further told the court that Kumar was hiding in several places like Uttarakhand and Punjab and that "police have to take him to several locations during their investigation". "He (Sushil) was an Officer-on-Special-Duty at the (Chhatrasal) Stadium...we need to recover the DVRs (digital video recording) of the stadium which Sushil took with him," the prosecution argued.

He also submitted that police needed to carry out a probe on the motive of the crime and said that the video recovered from the phone of one of the accused persons showed Sushil holding a stick and brutally beating Dhankar "like an animal".

Several pistols, Sushil's car and the cloth he was wearing also need to be recovered during the course of police custody, the prosecution argued, while adding that since the accused has to be taken to different states during the probe and in view of the Covid-19 restrictions at various places, a 12-day custody was imperative.

Meanwhile, advocate Satwik Misra, on behalf of Sushil, argued that the police's remand application is not maintainable as most of the recoveries have already been made and "nothing remains that would require the custodial interrogation of the accused".

In his application filed before court opposing police's remand plea, Kumar has stated that he has an apprehension that the entire purpose of taking the applicant in police custody is to try and intimidate and coerce him into forcibly accepting some culpability. He further stated that he is innocent of all the alleged wrongdoings.

Delhi Police had earlier issued a lookout notice and announced a reward of 1 lakh on Kumar's arrest. A non-bailable warrant was also issued by a local court against Sushil.

A Delhi court had earlier turned down Kumar's anticipatory bail plea after noting that he is the "main conspirator" of the incident.