Drug case: ASI puts foot down, gets retrial started

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 26

An Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) stood his ground for months in a drugs case and got a retrial started even though his seniors had cancelled the case with a trial court approving the cancellation.

The police have also launched an inquiry against officers for ignoring the facts when they had quashed the case. DIG (Bathinda) Rajinder Singh Darbhanga is conducting the inquiry.

As per investigation report and other documents of the case, ASI Amrik Singh struggled for justice for several months before a Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by IGP (Bathinda Zone) MS Chhina on his request found that he was right.

An Additional Sessions Judge, Ferozepur, accepted the SIT’s report a few days ago.

On January 4, the ASI caught chemist Raj Kumar, a native of Guruharsahai (Ferozepur district), with 4,065 intoxicating tablets and 58 injections. As per the FIR, the accused claimed he was taking the medicines home as customers or retail buyers often needed them at odd hours. But he had no documents to prove his claim. He was booked and arrested.

Later, a union of chemists questioned the police action on the grounds that Kumar was innocent and the police did not follow a procedure before booking him.

An SP-rank officer conducted an inquiry and recommended quashing of the FIR on February 23. Senior officers accepted it and the court released the accused, accepting the cancellation report.

The ASI, however, insisted that he had done a fair job. He stuck to his stand in the court during cross-examination.

On June 14, he submitted a revised plea for investigation into the cancellation of the case. At this, the SIT was formed. Its report supported the ASI’s claims. The SIT found the cancellation report was not even put up before the office of the IG (Bathinda Zone), who was the nodal officer for granting approval to cancellation of any FIR.

The ASI won the battle for justice when the trial court in Ferozepur allowed the police to submit a challan against the accused and agreed for a retrial.

This is the second case from the border belt involving shady drug deals of policemen. The crime branch is already investigating the role of a former Moga SSP for letting off three policemen, from whose custody a large consignment of drugs was seized last month.

In the two cases, the police had boasted of success before the media but later cancelled the cases.