The sight of the German officers delivering millionaire art ‘dealer’ Subhash Chandra Kapoor to the Tamil Nadu police team at the Cologne prison would have triggered hard reactions from the human rights activists - of whom there are dime a dozen in democratic India.
While the Germans had the 63-year-old Indian American in handcuffs and leg irons, they were taken aback when Tamil Nadu officers told them they did not bring handcuffs for taking their prized prisoner home.
For the first time, the TN police sent a woman officer at the head of a sensitive international operation. Idol wing superintendent of police Z Annie Vijaya was a tough cop, who handled Kapoor with firmness while showing enough lenience in allowing him a window seat on the long Lufthansa haul from Frankfurt.
Her teammates S. Selvaraj and Inspector P. Udhayakumar helped hugely in ensuring there were no hassles in securing the suspect. The team had landed in Frankfurt July 10 noon and immediately set out on its task, helped by the Indian mission there.
The extradition papers had already been processed and the Cologne prison officers were happy to get rid of their inmate, confined there since his arrest last October following the Red Corner alert put out by the TN idol wing through the Interpol.
The Ariyalur operation moved rather fast.Idol wing IG R. Arumugam was familiar with the case when he was the DIG.
Once the link led to Kapoor, the file for his extradition was speeded up by state DGP K Ramanujam and home secretary Rajagopal. It was cleared by the chief minister in less than two days.