Cops’ negligence comes to the fore

LUCKNOW: Tussle among contractors (who enjoy the backing of gangsters) is quite common in Northern Railway DRM office. The superior groups always try to restrain rivals from depositing railway tenders. The railways staff and local cops are aware of this but have always been mute spectators .

Initial police probe in DRM office shootout that claimed the life of Ashish Pandey, also hinted towards gang war between two groups of gangsters, Surendra Kalia and Arvind Singh alias Narendra Pahadi, a close aide of former Samajwadi Party MLC Ajit Singh.

In the FIR registered with Hazratganj police , the deceased’s friend Krishna Kumar Mishra has named Narendra Pahadi as the main conspirator. The FIR said that Narendra Pahadi’s relatives Pappu Singh, Dinesh Singh, Ajeet and Shyamlal executed the shootout. It named three others, including Pahadi and his close aide JP Singh, as the conspirators. Police have arrested Dinesh Singh but have failed to trace the others named in the FIR.

“The shootout on the DRM of f i ce premises is the fallout of police negligence, as local cops avoided intervening in the frequent contractors’ tussles,” alleged a local vendor outside the DRM office. He said most of the contractors were backed by gangsters and the clashes between different groups were a common feature here. Surprisingly, cops did not intervene even if they were present on the crime scene, he emphasised.

The vendor said two cops were present at some distance from the DRM office parking stand where the shoot out took place on Friday afternoon. He said Ashish Pandey alias Naatu, who was killed in the shootout, was associated with the Surendra Kalia. group. Naatu’s job was to not allow other contractors to deposit the tenders and he was doing just that which led to the shootout. Naatu had done similar things even in the past, he added.