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The arrest Friday evening of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi's K Kavitha - in connection with the Delhi liquor policy case - triggered a dramatic confrontation between her brother and senior BRS leader KT Rama Rao and the team of Enforcement Directorate officials who took Ms Kavitha into custody.
A video from inside K Kavitha's Hyderabad home showed Mr Rama Rao, or KTR, in a heated verbal spat with ED officials. In the video, he claimed the agency officials does not have the transit warrant needed to move Ms Kavitha - the daughter of former Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao - to Delhi.
"The search is over and an arrest warrant has been issued... (but) no transit warrant was issued, so you can't produce her before a magistrate. How can you make a case?" KTR asks the ED officials.
READ | BRS' K Kavitha Arrested By ED Over Delhi Liquor Policy Case
A transit warrant, or a transit remand order, is a judicial magistrate's directive assigning an arrested individual to police custody before they can be moved, legally, across state borders.
Sources have told NDTV Ms Kavitha will be taken to Delhi for further questioning.
Official arrest documents #KavithaArrest @ndtv @ndtvindia pic.twitter.com/ZLfJk4kf1b
— Uma Sudhir (@umasudhir) March 15, 2024The 43-second video from K Kavitha's home also both KTR (and his aides) and the probe agency team going head-to-head, with each side filming the stand-off and trying to shout down the other.
At one point in the video a woman (presumably part of the ED team) shouts an instruction to a man filming the confrontation, "How did you come in? How did they come in? Ask them that question..."
To this, an associate of KTR shoots back, "Madam, door was open... the door was open".
READ | BRS Leader K Kavitha's House Raided Over Delhi Liquor Policy Case
The spat between KTR and the ED officials also includes warnings of contravening Supreme Court orders; the former Telangana Minister declares, "You are in serious trouble (for violating terms of an undertaking to the top court)", to which the agency official replies, "You have legal remedies."
K Kavitha, the ED has claimed, is part of a 'South group' that bribed Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party for liquor licences under the now-scrapped liquor excise policy. The 'South group' is accused of paying Rs 100 crore in bribes, money the ED claims was used by the AAP for election campaigns.
She has been questioned twice before in this case - in 2022 and 2023 - but has since skipped multiple summons by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation. She also moved the Supreme Court claiming the central agencies could not summon female accused to appear at their offices.
Ms Kavitha has previously denied all charges against her, and has accused the BJP of targeting her via the ED for political gain. Her arrest this evening comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Telangana for a mega outreach - he will hold a road show - before the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
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