Mumbai: The Raigad police on Sunday shifted Republic TV Managing Director and Chief Editor Arnab Goswami from an Alibaug school, where he was temporarily kept, to the Taloja Central Jail in the district, officials said here.
Goswami was lodged in a school premises since his arrest on November 4, as it serves as a Covid-19 isolation centre for prisoners.
He has been remanded to judicial custody till November 18 by Alibaug Court Chief Judicial Magistrate Sunaina Pingle.
Slamming the move to shift him, wife Samyabrata Ray Goswami claimed that her husband was “dragged and lugged by the Maharashtra Police in a blacked-out police van to Taloja Jail this morning”.
She said that her husband repeatedly said his “life was under threat” and the jailer assaulted him after he demanded access to his lawyers, “which was shockingly denied”.
“With Arnab (Goswami) publicly disclosing the threat to his life and the atrocities he is facing in custody, the law and order officers and the entire state and national machinery will be held responsible if any harm is inflicted upon my husband,” warned Samyabrata in a statement.
Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president Kirit Somaiya rushed to the jail and demanded proper care and security for Goswami while he was kept there.
“The jailer assured me of no harassment to Goswami in jail and proper medical treatment if required will be provided,” Somaiya later told mediapersons.
Goswami was arrested early Wednesday by a large contingent of Mumbai Police and Raigad Police in connection with the case of double-suicide in Alibaug on May 5, 2018.
The CJM while rejecting the police remand had observed that the case was reopened without the consent of a magistrate and had also questioned the legality of the arrest.