Escorts’ arms rules ground Sasi’s flight plan

She took the road to reach Chennai after getting the emergency parole of five days from October 7 to 11 to visit her ailing husband M Natarajan, who is recuperating after multiple organ transplants.

On Friday morning, it was decided that Sasikala and TTV Dinakaran would board the 4.10 pm flight from Bengaluru and land in Chennai at 5.20 pm with four escorts. Accordingly, tickets were booked. 

As security agencies at Chennai airport were making logistic arrangement, they came to know that Sasikala had cancelled her flight plan. 

“Any convict on parole will be accompanied by an armed escort. In the case of Sasikala it was initially decided that four escort cops could accompany her in the flight along with Dinakaran. But for that the weapons of the escort police personnel had to be deposited with the airlines at least four hours earlier and the same would be carried by the pilot, who would hand them over to the police only after landing in Chennai. And even doing that necessitated a court order. All this complications related to formalities had forced Sasikala to ditch her flight schedule and take the road route,” police sources said here.