Ghaziabad: A UP Police Dial 112 constable, who helped a gang rob people on NH9 after stopping their vehicles on the pretext of checking, was arrested along with his associates late Monday night.
The constable, Praveen Kumar, and his associates, Vinay, Deepak, Pradeep, Himanshu, Roshan and Kunal, are all residents of Ghaziabad.
Police said the constable used to stop vehicles, ask the driver to alight and take the person 100 metres away from the car for a ‘settlement’ if documents were not in order or any other irregularity was found. The other gang members would then steal valuables from the car. Their modus operandi came to light after a complaint was filed by one of the victims at the Vijay Nagar police station.
Devendra Bisht, SHO, Vijay Nagar police station, said that on September 9, the constable stopped a person named Rajesh, a man attached to an online pharmacy company who was on his way to Gurgaon to make a delivery.
“Around 7pm, Praveen stopped his car for checking and asked him to show the papers. The victim showed his company’s ID card but Praveen told Rajesh that he was driving at a high speed and that a challan would be issued to him. A discussion went on for a few minutes. The constable sat in the car and took the victim some 200 metres away, towards Vijay Nagar bypass,” Bisht said.
“Praveen then came out of the car and called Rajesh out. They started walking down the road and the constable asked for a bribe to let him go. In the meantime, Praveen’s associates reached the car, stole medicines worth Rs 4-5 lakh that were kept inside and fled. The constable then let off Rajesh, without taking any money, and left the spot as well,” he added.
Police sources said Rajesh had been asked for a bribe of Rs 14,000.
During interrogation, Bisht said Praveen told them that after forming the gang, he and associates had carried out similar robberies and would often target people travelling alone. Praveen has been terminated from his job with Dial 112, the statewide first-responder service of police.
All the accused have been booked under IPC Section 379 (punishment for theft) and sent to judicial custody after being produced in court.

HYDERABAD: Even as the entire focus is on online classes in this pandemic, as many as 46,586 students out of 1,10,615 in academic session began on September 1 with online classes for all school students.
Samagra Shiksha, an overarching programme for school education sector, said
with digital devices as on September 12. Seventy-three gram panchayats, one library, 16 volunteers, 98 peers and nine volunteers were used for digital mapping of these students, it said.
Hyderabad district have no access to digital classes.
Teachers said the government should come to the aid of students who have already missed classes in the last fortnight. Telangana’s 2020-21 only 18,311 students were mapped
Make alternative arrangements: Teachers
The survey of Samagra Shiksha has also revealed that as many as 16,286 students in Hyderabad district have a TV with DD/cable/DTH at home and 11,345 students have access to a smartphone with Internet. A total of 17,307 students are said to be having at least one digital device, while 780 students have desktop/laptop with an Internet connection.
Teachers said the government should have taken up the survey to find out the status of students with digital resources before June and made alternative arrangements for those students not having digital devices.
“Most of the DTH providers are still not offering the TSAT channel. The government should either make it mandatory for all DTHs to provide the channel or telecast lessons through Doordarshan for more hours so that more students can access the lessons,” said M Ravinder, president, Telangana Progressive Teachers’ Federation.
Teachers also said lessons for English and Urdu mediums should be planned and the schedule shared immediately so that all the students could start attending the online classes. “Officials should arrange a TV in school, community hall or any public place so that students who are not mapped yet can attend classes there,” said Chava Ravi of Telangana State United Teachers’ Federation.