Arnab Goswami spends night at school designated as Alibag jail’s Covid-19 centre

Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, arrested for allegedly abetting the suicide of an interior designer, spent the night at a local school which has been designated as a Covid centre for the Alibaug prison, an official said on Thursday. A court at Alibaug 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. Police had sought Goswami's custody for 14 days, but the court held that custodial interrogation was not required.

On Wednesday night, Goswami was taken for medical examination at a state-run hospital in the coastal town, the official said. After the medical examination, he was taken to Alibaug Nagar Parishad School, which is designated as a Covid centre of the Alibaug prison, and he spent the night there, the official said. Goswami and the two others were booked under Sections 306 (abetment of suicide) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC in connection with the suicide of architect-interior designer Anvay Naik and Naik's mother over alleged non-payment of dues by Republic TV. 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.

Naik, in his purported suicide note, had mentioned the names of Goswami, Shaikh and Sarda, police said, adding the note was sent to handwriting experts in Pune and a report is awaited. Hearing on Goswami's bail application will be held on Thursday at Alibaug court, an official said. 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 SS Shinde and MS Karnik on Thursday. A team of Raigad police picked up Goswami (47) from his Lower Parel house in Mumbai on Wednesday morning. He was seen being pushed into the police van, and claimed that he was assaulted by police before being taken away.