Lawyers representing international idol smuggler Subash Kapoor, who is being grilled by sleuths of the idol wing, on Sunday got access to the interrogation room in Ariyalur.
“Till now we were only interacting with the accused. From Sunday morning we have been recording his statement and his lawyers are permitted to be with him from 8 am to 6 pm,” a senior police official said.
On Sunday, Deccan Chronicle carried a report about lawyers crying foul over not being allowed to be with their client, despite a court order, for the first three days of Subash Kapoor’s police custody.
Kapoor had been caught by Interpol after the Tamil Nadu police had put out a lookout notice for him for stealing 18 temple idols in Ariyalur district.
“His activities are videographed round the clock, his guards are changed very two hours and a doctor is ready to deal with any emergency,” a senior police official said.
Kapoor was diagnosed with six ailments, including cancer, while he was in a German prison since being detained by Interpol at Frankfurt in October.
He was extradited from Germany on July 13 this year. A court in Jaykondam has given sleuths of the idol wing 7-day custody of Kapoor.
The state police had been tracking the accused for four years and had issued a lookout circular through Interpol for the international smuggler.
Kapoor is believed to have been operating in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Thailand and a few other South Asian countries to “procure” ancient idols and sell them to wealthy Western buyers through his now defunct gallery “Art of the Past” on Madison Avenue, New York.
The smuggler had even been donating artefacts to museums and universities and many well-known museums in US, Canada and Australia have bought from him regularly.
The officials had been getting information about him through his partners in crime such as Sanjeevi Ashokan and Rathinam whom they had arrested a couple of years ago.
An ex-girlfriend of Kapoor’s was also a good source of information for the police in tracking down the idol thief.