Cloud clears over ‘diplomat’ status; police get into action

French consulate official Pascal Mazurier, 39, accused of raping his three-and-a-half-year-old daughter was arrested early Tuesday morning, after the city police got a green signal from the external affairs ministry in New Delhi. The go-ahead came after the French government consented to the arrest and police investigation into the alleged heinous crime committed by Mazurier after confirming that he did not enjoy diplomatic immunity.

To avoid media glare, a team of police officials rushed to his residence in Vasanthnagar and whisked him with his face covered by a cloth, a Panama cap on his head and dark glasses. He was produced before the 8th additional chief metropolitan magistrate in the evening and remanded in 14-day judicial custody.

DCP (Central), BR Ravikanthegowda, said since Mazurier’s DNA samples had been sent for tests, the police would not need his custody for further questioning.

Upon his arrest, Mazurier was taken for a medical test to Bowring & Lady Curzon Hospital, where his blood and semen samples were taken for examination. Top police officials said Mazurier’s blood and semen samples were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) and that the investigations were close to completion.

A senior French government official from internal security, Jean Louis Leccia, attached to French embassy in New Delhi, arrived here. He along with Dominique Causse, consul-general of France in Bangalore, met city police commissioner, BG Jyothi Prakash Mirji, and submitted documents including the official permission for Mazurier’s prosecution. The French officials also assured their cooperation during the investigations. Leccia has been assigned by the French government to monitor the ongoing investigations.

A doctor from the forensic medicine department of the Bowring Hospital said, “We have conducted a general medical examination, as it is necessary before Mazurier is taken into custody. His blood and semen samples have also been taken and sent to FSL for DNA test. This test report will then be matched with the swab samples and sperm detected from victim.”

Security breach?
Despite tight security, a curious onlooker at the Bowring hospital managed to slap Mazurier. Hundreds of passers-by had stopped by to have a glimpse of the French consulate official, and one of them slapped him while he was being taken outside the hospital after the test.

Shockingly, the attacker did not even know whom he had slapped. The police too were busy providing Mazurier a safe cover and ignored the attacker. A senior police officer, later reacting to the incident, alleged that the escort team was under the assumption that the attacker was part of the media crew.

Commotion prevailed at the hospital when security personnel tried to prevent media personnel from clicking Mazurier’s photos.
Soon after the tests, Mazurier was taken to the police station.

Earlier, when Mazurier was taken to Bowring & Lady Curzon Hospital for medical tests, media photographers and policemen jostled with each other as the latter tried their best in futility to take Mazurier without being caught by the lensmen.

However, during one such attempt, when the policemen tried shifting Mazurier from the forensic department of the hospital to a waiting jeep to avoid the media, the rushed him into a room in the nurses training school in the hospital premises. But the photographers got whiff of the policemen’s ploy to throw them off their backs when a boy told them that a ‘foreigner’ had been taken into the room by the police. The narrow passage led to several policemen and media photographers tripping, which resulted in some cameras being damaged and some photo journalists sustaining minor injuries.