Tihar DSP, four others booked in FIR over gangster’s murder
NEW DELHI: On the night of August 3, when a Delhi Police officer reached Tihar’s jail number 3 after getting a distress call on the 112 helpline number from alleged gangster Ankit Gujjar’s family about him being assaulted inside the prison, the jail officers told police that Gujjar suffered “simple injuries”, according to a First Information Report (FIR) filed on Monday evening against the Tihar deputy superintendent Narendra Meena in the alleged murder of the gangster.
HT has seen the copy of the FIR, in which police have also noted allegations of bribery and extortion by jail officers. Along with Meena, Gujjar’s family has also named three constables and an assistant superintendent in their complaint. However, the accused have not been named in the FIR.
A prison officer, who asked not to be named, said the deputy superintendent and three others have been suspended pending magisterial inquiry and police investigation.
A prisoner, who was released on bail the same night, told Gujjar’s family that he saw jail officers assaulting Gujjar.
When an assistant sub inspector(asi) from Hari Nagar police station visited Tihar as part of the probe, the jail staff told the ASI that “Gujjar was fine, he was given medicines for simple injuries and a deputy superintendent was admitted to the Deen Dayal Upadhyay(ddu) hospital”, the FIR said.
According to the FIR, the police officer returned after he was told that Gujjar and two others assaulted jail officers during an inspection of their cell.
The following morning, Delhi Police received information from the jail officials that Gujjar was found dead. When police visited the jail this time, they found two other injured prisoners (earlier lodged with Gujjar) in another cell. Gujjar’s postmortem report said “cause of death was due to haemorrhage” because of the “cumulative effect of multiple blunt force injuries”.
Until his arrest in August 2020, Gujjar,29, was one of western Uttar Pradesh’s most wanted persons. Accused in at least eight murders among other criminal cases, Gujjar carried a reward of Rs 1.25 lakh at the time of his arrest --- Rs 1 lakh announced by Uttar Pradesh police and Rs 25,000 by Delhi police.
According to the FIR, Gujjar’s mother, Geeta, has accused jail officers of demanding Rs 1 lakh as protection money inside the prison. As evidence, Geeta has also submitted a recording of a phone call between Gujjar and his sister, Shivani, that purportedly took place on August 2.
“Ankit had told my daughter (Shivani) that he had paid Rs 50,000 to the jail officers but was unable to pay the remaining money. He told Shivani he was worried for his life as he was unable to pay the money,” read Geeta’s statement to the police, in which she has demanded the arrest of the jail officers.
The FIR also mentions the version of the jail officers as noted by the police’s investigating officer.
Deputy superintendent Meena told the police that they conducted an inspection inside Gujjar’s cell on April 3 afternoon and found a cell phone, data cable and knife. Meena said Gujjar and two other inmates of the cell number 3 assaulted him and other officials, after which Gujjar was transferred to another cell and the other two prisoners were sent to a different cell. The jail officers told the investigating officer that between 6am and 6.30am on August 4, when they went to check on Gujjar during the roll call of inmates, he was found unconscious and was rushed to the jail hospital. Gujjar was declared brought dead.
According to the autopsy report conducted by a board of doctors, noted that Gujjar had deep wounds on his neck, left occipital region, right eyebrows and haemorrhage over the cerebral hemispheres of brain.
Advocate Rishi Sood, who filed a petition in court seeking FIR against the jail officials, said, “Police registered an FIR after the court’s direction. We want police to conduct a thorough investigation and arrest all officers who were involved. The CCTV footage of the prison is important and must be preserved carefully.
“The court has directed that the CCTV footage be preserved. In their report, the jail officers have mentioned that they used minimum force, which is a lie as is evident from the post-mortem report findings. We have been told that prison officers are threatening other inmates to take the blame for my client’s murder or claim that there was a riot inside the jail. This is false and baseless,” advocate Sood contended,