DGP Siddhartha Chattopadhyaya’s controversial application to the Punjab & Haryana High Court asking for its protection from an alleged false implication in a criminal case came after a senior police officer investigating a high-profile suicide case in Amritsar sent him a “questionnaire” asking about his “clandestine” links with the management of an immigration firm owned by the father of an accused in the suicide case.
The Indian Express has learnt that IG L K Yadav’s April 2 questionnaire to which he demanded Chattopadhyaya’s answers, included the warning that if he failed to respond to the questions, it would be taken as an “admission of your guilt”.
It was after this that Chattopadhyaya approached the High Court alleging that he was being falsely implicated in the suicide case of Inderpreet Singh Chadha, an Amritsar resident. Chattopadhyaya also sought a CBI probe in Chadha’s suicide case.
Yadav disconnected the call when The Indian Express tried to speak to him, and Chattopadhyaya declined to speak, saying the matter was sub-judice.
Yadav’s missive to Chattopadhyaya followed the registration of a murder case by Mohali police last month naming Lt Col Baljit Singh Sandhu (retd), the owner of WWICS, a well-known immigration agency. The body of an employee of the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking, Abhishek Guleria, had been recovered from Pinjore-Baddi road. Since Guleria was reported missing by his family members in Mohali district, Punjab Police took over the investigation.
Police’s preliminary investigations revealed that Guleria’s body was found in a water tank of a farmhouse owned Sandhu, who was then nominated in the murder FIR. Sandhu filed an anticipatory bail in a Mohali court on Monday.
Sandhu’s son, Davinder, is already an accused in the Chadha suicide case. He was recently released on bail.
Late last month Rajiv Bajaj, a director in WWICS, held a press conference in defense of his boss, at which he declared that Sandhu’s being booked in the murder case was to pressurise him into getting his son to give a statement against DGP Chattopadhyaya in the Chadha suicide case.
Yadav’s questionnaire to Chattopadhyaya was sent after this press conference, and demanded to know if he had a “clandestine design” with Bajaj.
This was Yadav’s second questionnaire to Chattopadhyaya. The first related to the January 3 suicide of Inderpreet Chadha in Amritsar. Chadha’s son Harpreet had alleged to the Yadav-led SIT probing the suicide that Davinder Sandhu and eight others were responsible for the suicide of his father.
According to Harpreet’s statement to the SIT, a woman NRI, Kay Ghoman, also accused in the Chadha suicide case and Davinder Sandhu, both had links with Chattopadhyaya. Punjab government had constituted the SIT to probe Chadha suicide case.
The entire saga, bits and pieces of which are surfacing after Chattopadhyaya’s April 5 application, has linked a slew of apparently unconnected cases and drawn in a cast of police officers at the highest levels.
A top Punjab government official told The Indian Express that the ongoing crisis in the police force foreshadowed a messy succession battle for the post of DGP when incumbent Suresh Arora retires at the end of June this year.
Chattopadhyaya’s allegations in court, highlighting Yadav’s questionnaires to him — he submitted both questionnaires in the High Court — were directed mainly against DGP Suresh Arora, and DGP (Intelligence) Dinkar Gupta, who is considered to be a probable for the top job along with others such as Harpreet Singh Dhillon among the top six or seven senior most officers in the police. Punjab has no precedent of following the order of seniority for the apex police appointment.
Chattopadhyaya is at present DGP (Human Resources Department) and head of a SIT constituted by High Court to probe the role of certain Punjab Police officers in a drug-trafficking case. Through his April 5 application in the High court, Chattopadhyaya alleged that he was being harassed by the top brass of Punjab Police because of his investigation into the alleged involvement of two senior police officers in the illegal drugs trade.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has taken a dim view of what he called “indiscipline” in the force, and constituted a three-member committee headed by his Chief Principal Secretary Suresh Kumar and comprising Home Secretary N S Kalsi and DGP Suresh Arora. Amarinder has sought a detailed report on the entire issue.