Kannur (Kerala), Jul 27 A court in Thalassery here on Monday granted the Crime Branch five days' custody of M K Ram, the prime accused in the suicide case of a dental student, to facilitate detailed interrogation.
The custody was granted after the Crime Branch, which is probing the case, moved a petition before the Special Court under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in Thalassery.
Ram was produced before the court, where the prosecution sought his custody for further investigation.
Accepting the plea, the court granted the investigating agency five days' custody.
The victim, Nithin Raj, a student of a private dental college at Anjarakandy in Kannur, was found dead on April 10 after falling from a building on the college campus in an alleged case of suicide.
According to the investigation, Raj, who belonged to a Scheduled Caste, was allegedly insulted and intimidated by Ram, the then head of the Department of Dental Anatomy.
After Ram was arrested in Karnataka last week, the special court ordered his release the same day, observing that the grounds of arrest had not been furnished to him.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the developments, the Kerala High Court later questioned whether senior police officials were attempting to shield the accused and directed the investigating officer who arrested Ram to appear before it in person.
Subsequently, the Crime Branch re-arrested Ram, following which he was remanded in judicial custody.
Apart from Ram, another faculty member, Sangeetha Nambiar K T, and hostel warden Kamalashan V V have also been named as accused in the case.
Nambiar has been granted anticipatory bail, while the investigation into Kamalashan's alleged role in Nithin Raj's death is continuing, officials said.
