INDIAN police have arrested two senior officials of global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers over fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services.
The Press Trust of India and and other Indian media said the two officials were taken into custody in connection with the billion-dollar fraud at India's fourth-largest outsourcing firm based in the southern city of Hyderabad.
The arrests came after B. Ramalinga Raju, founder of Satyam, was arrested earlier this month, days after owning up to the scandal that has shaken corporate India.
Pricewaterhouse audited Satyam's finances and is now being probed by India's accounting board for its failure to detect the fraud.
The Press Trust of India (PTI) and other media identified the two arrested Pricewaterhouse officials as the company's Chief Relationship Partner in India, S. Gopalakrishnan, and Engagement Leader Srinivas Taluri.
A Pricewaterhouse spokesman called the arrests "unfortunate and said it had not seen "any evidence of any wrongdoing'' by the men, according to PTI.
"The firm and its related team have fully cooperated with the investigating agencies to provide all the documents called for. Under the circumstances, detention is unfortunate,'' the spokesman said.
The accounting house had been "shocked by the massive fraud at Satyam and by the elaborate efforts undertaken to conceal the fraud from the board of directors, shareholders and the auditors,'' the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Mr Raju remained in custody as investigations continued into his declaration that one billion dollars in cash on the company's books did not exist.
Earlier, India's biggest engineering company Larsen and Toubro almost tripled its stake in Satyam Computer Services to 12 percent, edging closer to a possible takeover bid.
The company now is Satyam's largest single shareholder.
If Larsen hikes its stake further, India's takeover rules oblige it to make a full-scale offer for the company.
