The rest of the CBI team entered the compound of the house from the back gate. (PTI)
Highlights
- CBI gives lookout notice against P Chidambaram, accused in INX Media case
- Mr Chidambaram, incommunicado for 24 hours, shows up at press conference
- Multiple teams of probe agencies CBI, ED reach his home. CBI arrests him
Congress leader P Chidambaram, who had gone incommunicado for a day after his anticipatory bail in the INX Media case was rejected, was on Wednesday arrested by the CBI amid unprecedented drama at his Delhi residence. Video footage showed the officials scaling walls to enter the house.
On Wednesday evening, Mr Chidambaram appeared at the Congress headquarters and addressed a press conference. The CBI, which had issued a lookout notice against him, rushed to the party office to arrest him. By then, the Congress veteran and other leaders had left the premises.
The CBI then rushed to his Jor Bagh residence, flanked by the Enforcement Directorate and Delhi Police teams. A few officers scaled the wall and jumped inside after they were denied entry from the main gate.
The rest of the team entered the compound of the house from the back gate.
The inside doors of the house were opened after an hour. A CBI team then entered and arrested the Congress leader.
Amid protest by Congress workers outside his house, Mr Chidambaram was taken to the CBI headquarters in a white Maruti Ertiga car.
The operation was conducted by three CBI teams, supported by the Delhi Police. Paramilitary force CRPF was stationed outside the house.
Mr Chidambaram is accused of facilitating foreign investment in the INX Media company in 2007, as Finance Minister in the Congress-led UPA government, at the instance of his son Karti Chidambaram, who allegedly received kickbacks for his role.
Since Tuesday evening, the CBI has visited his residence in Delhi twice and two lookout circulars -- meant to stop him from leaving the country -- were issued by the agency as well as the Enforcement Directorate.
At the press conference, Mr Chidambaram said he was not hiding from the law. "I was aghast that I was accused of hiding from the law... I was pursuing the law," he said. "I was working alongside my lawyers for the whole of last night... and the whole day."