Former IPS officer held, FIR also names MP
LUCKNOW: Former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Amitabh Thakur was arrested on Friday after the Lucknow police registered a first information report (FIR) against him and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP from Ghosi, Atul Rai, on the basis of the findings of a two-member committee probing allegations of fabrication of evidence raised by a sexual assault victim and her male associate who set themselves on fire outside the Supreme Court. A judicial magistrate’s court in Lucknow has sent the former IPS officer to judicial custody till September 9.
Before attempting suicide along with the male associate on August 16, the woman recorded a Facebook Live video in which she named Thakur, a former Varanasi senior superintendent of police and a judge of the MP/ MLA court, claiming they allegto
favoured Rai and fabricated evidence in his favour. The two succumbed to burn injuries days later. On August 17, UP police also suspended two other police officers for alleged discrepancies in compiling evidence in a cheating case involving the woman.
The police said that, on May 1, 2019, the woman filed a rape case against Rai at the Lanka police station in Varanasi. After the MP’s anticipatory bail was rejected by the Supreme Court the same month, he surrendered in a Varanasi court in June 2019. He is currently in jail.
Lucknow commissioner of police DK Thakur confirmed the arrest and said that the former IPS officer was taken to the Hazratganj police station in Lucknow where an FIR under IPC sections 167 (public servant framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury), 195-A (threatening any person to give false evidence), 218 (public servant framing incorrect record or writing with intent to save person from punishment or property from forfeiture), 306 (abetment of suicide), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) had been lodged against him and Rai. Additional director general of police (law and order) Prashant Kumar said the FIR was lodged on the basis of the interim report filed by the twomember committee comprising director general (DG) (Recruitedly ment and Promotion Board) RK Vishwakarma and additional director general (1090) Neera Rawat which probed the allegations.
Thakur, a 1992-batch IPS officer, has faced multiple inquiries during his service tenure in the past 15 years.
He was given compulsory retirement in March this year after he was reportedly not found fit for the service.
Another senior police official said the FIR was lodged at Hazratganj police station.
The official said the probe committee mentioned in its findings that the sexual assault victim had written a letter to the then Varanasi SSP on November 10, 2020, stating that Thakur, in connivance with Rai, was fabricating evidence against them.
He said the victim alleged that Thakur intentionally tried to create fake evidence by making an audio clip about a telephonic conversation go viral.