CBI officials take Anand Giri to Haridwar for recovery of laptop, mobile

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Anand Giri, prime accused in Mahant Narendra Giri death case, being produced in the District Court, in Prayagraj recently. (ANI Photo)

PRAYAGRAJ: CBI officials on Wednesday took Anand Giri, an accused in the alleged death case of Mahant Narendra Giri, to Haridwar for the recovery of his laptop, cell phone and documents relevant to the case. After a few hours of questioning in the morning, sleuths took him to Prayagraj airport from where they took a flight around 3.30pm.

The prime focus of the investigation agency is now on Anand Giri’s laptop and mobile phone, which may contain the alleged morphed obscene videos and photos of the Mahant, about which he had mentioned in the purported suicide note found in the room where his body was found hanging from the ceiling fan recently, said officials.

During questioning, Anand Giri denied having knowledge about any such videos or photographs.

After taking Anand Giri to Haridwar, the CBI will also investigate about the person there with whom Mahant Narendra Giri was in contact and learned from him that Anand was planning to release an alleged morphed video of him with a woman. Though the Mahant, in his purported suicide note, stated that he came to know about Anand Giri’s plans from a person in Haridwar, he did not mention his name.

It is believed that CBI officials may have scanned call details of Mahant Narendra Giri’s phone to identify that person in Haridwar.

Meanwhile, CBI officials continued to grill the other accused in the case –former priest of Bade Hanuman Temple, Aadya Tiwari and his son Sandeep, at the Police Lines. The duo said they didn’t know why their name was mentioned in the suicide note.

Aadya and Sandeep claimed they used to honour the Mahant even when the responsibility of aarti was taken away from Aadya Tiwari on the instructions of Mahant Narendra Giri few months back and his son’s flower shop was removed from outside the Bade Hanuman temple.

The CBI officials also questioned the father-son duo about their multi crore properties in Naini and other areas.

They informed the CBI that though they were close to Anand Giri, they had nothing to do with his enmity with his Narendra Giri.

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