CISF commandant, lawyer held for hiding hashish in technocrat’s car to frame him

NEW DELHI : Delhi Police have arrested a senior commandant of the Central Industrial Security Force, presently posted in Ministry of External Affairs on deputation, for allegedly hiding 550 grams of hashish in the car of a consultant working with the Union government.

Police said the commandant wanted to befriend the consultant’s wife, a bureaucrat posted in Rajasthan. When the woman distanced herself with the commandant, he hid the contraband in the car to frame the man, police said. A lawyer, the commandant’s childhood friend who helped him procure the drugs from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, was also arrested.

A CISF spokesperson said that they have not received any official communication from local police on this matter.

The hashish was recovered from the car on Wednesday evening when it was parked in the Central Government Offices (CGO) complex at Lodhi Road. The recovery was the result of a tip off received by a deputy inspector general level officer of the CISF.

“The CISF checked the vehicle and recovered hashish from it. When the car owner was contacted, he claimed innocence. On this, the CISF reported the incident to the Delhi Police. A team from Lodhi Road police station then tracked the caller who turned out to be a hawker near CGO complex. When CCTV footage of the area where the hawker was stationed, were checked, we spotted two suspects who had used the hawker’s phone to tip off the DIG. In another CCTV footage, the men were also seen close to the car from which the drugs were recovered. They were identified and detained within hours,” said a police officer who did not wish to be named.

The officer said, the two men were identified as RP Singh, a CISF senior commandant, and his childhood friend and lawyer Niraj Chauhan. The police officer said when questioned, Singh told police that he was in touch with the car owner’s wife, who is a bureaucrat posted in Rajasthan.

“The commandant said he wanted to befriend the woman and, therefore, in order to get rid of her husband, a technocrat working with the Central government as a consultant, he hid the narcotics in his car to frame him,” the officer said.

Singh said Chauhan had helped him procure the hashish through his contacts in Aligarh.

Deputy commissioner of police (south) Atul Thakur said the two men were booked under the NDPS Act for the recovery of the drugs and under IPC section 120B for conspiracy.