The Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in its chargesheet filed against conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar has said that he freely used mobile phones and other prohibited items inside the Tihar jail in collusion with several prison officers whom he used to bribe in lakhs, in order to help run an extortion racket.
Bribe officers
According to the police, Deputy Jail Superintendent D.S. Meena of the Tihar jail used to collect ₹60 lakh to ₹75 lakh every fortnight from the co-accused in the case — Deepak and Pradeep Ramnani — which was subsequently distributed among jail officers who then used to help Chandrashekhar in running his extortion racket.
Five senior jail officers were arrested for alleged collusion with Chandrashekhar, who had duped former Religare promoter Shivinder Singh’s wife, Aditi Singh, to the tune of several crores.
The chargesheet in the case was filed before Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh and the cognisance for the same was taken on November 2. In the chargesheet, Mr. Meena has given a confessional statement to the police that ₹50 lakh was given to officers above the rank of assistant superintendent (AS) on a fortnightly basis while ₹10 lakh was given to those below the rank of AS.
Lived like a king
The EOW also claimed that Chandrashekhar spent long hours in the chamber of the Jail Superintendent where opaque curtains were hung so that he could not be captured by the CCTV cameras.
“He was living in the jail like a king. It seems all officials of Rohini jail were involved because of the facilities given to him. An entire barrack vacant of all other inmates was given to him,” the police said in the document.
The police also said that he was using certain high-end mobile applications to spoof the landline numbers of top Government officials for extorting huge amounts of money from several people from inside the jail. According to Ms. Aditi’s complaint, she received a call last year from a man, posing as a senior officer of the Law Ministry, saying that he will secure her husband, Shivinder’s bail, who was in jail at the time in return of money.
