Gurugram heist: Court rejects IPS officer Dheeraj Setia’s bail application; casts doubts on former Police Commissioner’s role

Sanjay Yadav
Gurugram, February 15

A Gurugram court rejected former Indian Police Service officer Dheeraj Setia’s bail application on Tuesday in connection with the sensational multicrore heist saying there was more to the story than meets the eye.

The court of Additional Sessions Judge Amit Sahrawat said that based on the admission made Sachinder Jain Naval, a doctor who is the chief suspect in the case, it seemed suspicious that Setia, Gurugram’s former deputy commissioner of police who was accused of accepting a bribe to derail investigations, could do so right under Gurugram’s former police commissioner KK Rao, especially given that gangsters would visit him at the Gurugram Commissionerate.

Setia was suspended from police service on December 21, 2021, after his role in the case came to light and is currently absconding.

The court said investigators could not determine if the entire exercise was done with the former police commissioner’s consent without the suspect’s custody.

In addition, Setia was given the charge of DCP (crime) through an official order from the police commissioner, the court said. What kind of vetting was done with regard to the petitioner’s competence and integrity before handing him the charge remains to be investigated, the court said.

“Whether the Commissioner of Police had passed that order dated 18.8.2021 as a matter of routine or purposely remains to be investigated and that is possible only upon the interrogation of the petitioner,” the court said.

“If the gangsters and the dacoits can visit the office and residence of a DCP with bags of money, a poor man in this country must certainly go to some deity to pray,” the court said.

The incident dates back to August 4, 2021, when gangster Lagarpuriya’s men broke into a flat a private company used as office space and decamped with crores of rupees in cash. A Special Task Force investigating the case put this money at Rs 30-40 crore.

The key accused in the theft case, Naval, acclaimed he’d bribed Setia with gold, cash, and currency in US dollars, worth Rs 2.5 crore, to hush up the case.

However, Naval claimed Setia returned a large part of the money and gold but kept a few dollars saying the case was not in his hands.