‘Fake’ intelligence officer alleges police torture, kills himself
RANCHI: Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das has ordered a CID probe into alleged police harassment that on Thursday led to the suicide of a suspected conman who masqueraded as an ‘assistant central intelligence officer’ (ACIO).
Shiv Saroj Kumar, 27, allegedly hanged himself from a tree after sending emails to the Prime Minister’s Office and several other officials, accusing police of treating him and his father, a retired government official, like criminals when they went to lodge his abduction report.
Das directed the removal of one of the accused police officers from his present post. “I want the entire issue probed within 24 hours and action initiated against the guilty police officers,” he said.
Additional director general of police (ADG), CID, Ajay Kumar Singh is leading the probe against two officers — one posted as officer in charge of Chutia police station and the other a DSP.
The purported email, which is being treated as Saroj’s suicide note, alleges how the cops misbehaved with him and his 61-yearold father, mentally harassed and tortured them for three days, for bringing his abduction to their notice. Police claim preliminary investigation revealed Saroj was a thug who was cheating his family and when he stood exposed in the presence of his father, he resorted to the extreme step.
In his email, Saroj said he had come to Ranchi on Saturday for re-verification of his passport as his job would require him to travel out of the country. But he claimed he was drugged and abducted by unidentified goons in a car. ARARIA: The district magistrate of Araria in northeast Bihar has ordered the freezing of 150 bank accounts of about 15 brokers, following detection of irregularities in acquisition of land for a road project along India-Nepal border.
The accounts are with various banks at Forbesganj, 293km northeast of state capital Patna.
“We have detected serious irregularities and all those involved in it will be brought to book,” Araria district magistrate Himanshu Sharma said. “The district administration is looking into papers of the land acquired for the border road being constructed jointly by Union and state governments,” he added.
The bank accounts of erring land brokers were frozen and more than ₹5 crore was recovered from them, he added.
Sharma did not rule out the connivance of the Forbesganj registry office employees in the alleged irregularities. “We have so far detected that 40 acres of agricultural land, identified for acquisition, was bought by brokers and shown as residential plots on paper to extract more compensation from the government,” Sharma said.