Ghaziabad sub-inspector caught taking bribe on video, suspended

Ghaziabad: The SSP on Thursday suspended a sub-inspector of Vijay Nagar police station after he was seen in a video accepting bribe from a complainant in a land dispute case.
In the video, the police officer could be seen demanding Rs 2 lakh from the complainant, saying half of it will go to the SSP himself. The accused officer has been identified as sub-inspector Anil Kumar.

According to Prithvi Singh, a resident of Noida, he had a land dispute with a retired senior government official’s family. Following a court order, the police had lodged an FIR against 12 persons in January last year for cheating, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy among various other sections of IPC.

Singh told TOI that the SI had demanded Rs 16 lakh to send all the accused in the case to jail. In case he failed to pay, he would file an adverse final report, he had said. The video was shot some three weeks ago but was made public by Singh only on Wednesday.

“Not only did the government official’s family through a false registry paper occupied a plot of land belonging to us in Akbarpur-Behrampur, whose market price is between Rs 8 and Rs 10 crore, but they also got an FIR lodged against me and eight of my relatives in a false case in 2016. But later, a panel formed by the district administration stated that the land was illegally occupied by the opposite party. On that basis, I approached a localcourt, which directed the police to register a case against the retired official and his family members,” said Singh (34), who runs a security agency in Noida.

An FIR was filed at Vijay Nagar police station in January 12, last year, against 12 persons under sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), 379 (theft) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

“However, our ordeal did not end there. Three months later, we were booked under the Gangsters Act, and we immediately approached the Allahabad high court and got a stay order on our arrest. For one year, Vijay Nagar police conducted an inquiry and a week back submitted its final report saying that they did not find any truth in my complaint,” he said.

“Sub-inspector Anil Kumar, who was the investigating officer in the case, had been continuously putting pressure on me to give him money for filing the final report in my favour. It started with Rs 2 lakh and went up to Rs 16 lakh,” Singh claimed.

When contacted, senior superintendent of police HN Singh said, “The police officer has been suspended and a fresh inquiry will be conducted in the case.”

Circle officer I (city) Manisha Singh said, “It is a case of cross-FIR in a property dispute case. As far as the video is concerned, prima facie the allegation against the cop has been found to be true.”