Inquiry against senior UP cop for taking bribe to release Punjab criminal

Shahira Naim

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, September 20

An Additional Director General-level officer is to probe the alleged deal made by an Uttar Pradesh special wing IG to let go Nabha jailbreak accused Gopi Ghanshyampura alias Gurpreet Singh from police detention in Lucknow.

Principal Secretary Arvind Kumar in a statement on the social media on Tuesday night said, “From certain news reports it has come to the notice of the government that certain allegations have been levelled on the role of some senior police officers in the arrest and release of a Punjab criminal. The government has taken note of these media reports and a high-level inquiry headed by an ADG-level officer has been ordered.”

This influential police officer had been in the news for the wrong reasons on earlier occasions as well but had managed to come out clean due to his contacts.

However, sources claim that this time Punjab Police has reported against him in writing after which the matter could no longer be brushed under the carpet.

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While Ghanshyampura was picked up from near a bus stand in Lucknow reportedly on September 10, the arrest was not shown on record either in UP or in Punjab.

It was the Facebook message of one of his accomplices Harjinder Singh Bhullar alias Vicky Gounder which recorded his arrest and release alerting Punjab Police.

On Tuesday night, CM Yogi Adityanath summoned DGP Sulkhan Singh and PS Home Arvind Kumar after which the inquiry was ordered.

According to sources, the deal to free Ghanshyampura from detention was reportedly negotiated by the said officer with Ghanshyampura’s three alleged collaborators in a Lucknow hotel. The officer is said to have demanded Rs 1 crore but the deal was struck at Rs 45 lakh after which Ghanshyampura was allowed to go.

The matter came to light after Punjab Police arrested the three alleged collaborators--Sandeep Tewari alias Pintu and two Pilibhit residents, Amandeep and Harjinder Singh Kahlon--and jointly interrogated them.

During interrogation it emerged that Tewari had facilitated the deal.

A small-time contractor from Sultanpur, Tewari had contested the 2012 assembly election on the ticket of a national party.

Kahlon, an activist from Pilibhit was one of the petitioners in the 1991 fake encounter of 10 Sikh pilgrims in Pilibhit in which a Lucknow CBI court had given life imprisonment to 47 policemen in April 2016. He is also one of the petitioners in the case of 1994 custodial death of seven TADA prisoners in Pilibhit district jail which is pending in the Allahabad High Court.

Amandeep Singh is a businessman in Ranikhet who is reportedly known to liquor trader Rimple.