Kochi: The police in Kochi, forced to launch a fresh probe into the trespassing of a Portuguese national onto the Ernakulam Siva Temple premise, took Pedro Miguel Rapose, 23, from an unspecified location in Goa on Thursday. He would be brought to the city on Friday. K. Laljy, the assistant commissioner of police, said he would be subjected to a thorough interrogation on why he chose to trespass into the temple at night. The incident that took place on March 16 snowballed into a controversy after the police released the person completing a preliminary round of interrogation.
The action of the police has been cited as a major lapse, and Ernakulam MLA Hibi Eden submitted a complaint to the DGP in this regard. The staff of the temple caught hold of the foreigner when he entered the premise by scaling the compound wall around 11.30 pm. They then handed him over to the Central Police in Ernakulam. The police let him off after a preliminary round of interrogation and verification of his travel documents. According to police sources, his travel documents had shown that he had entered India from Iran.
During the preliminary interrogation, the Portuguese national had told the police that he scaled the compound wall and entered the temple premise while looking for a safe place to spend the night. The police then arranged him a lodge, and he left for Goa the next day. The temple authorities, however, filed a complaint with the police a few days later that the 13 CCTV cameras on the temple premises had been blacked out during the period when the foreigner was inside.
