UP: Probe panel indicts IPS officer for seeking Rs 20 lakh from rape accused

LUCKNOW: An internal probe committee of Varanasi commissionarate has indicted 2018 batch IPS officer Anirudh Kumar, who is accused of seeking Rs 20 lakh as bribe from a rape accused during his posting in Varanasi in 2021.
A probe was ordered into the allegations after a video in which Kumar was seen making a video call with a rape accused went viral. In the video, he was purportedly demanding Rs 20 lakh as bribe for letting him go scot free. Initially, Kumar had maintained that he himself had got the video shot to trap the accused. A probe ordered into the video by then DGP DS Chauhan has found Singh's claim as unsubstantiated.
Principal secretary (home) Sanjay Prasad told TOI on Friday that prima facie the Varanasi commissionerate probe conducted had found merit in the case following which assent has been given for further departmental proceedings against the IPS officer. Another officer in DGP headquarters said that when the video had surfaced almost two years ago, a probe was conducted into the allegations of bribery, but the IPS officer was given a clean chit in the case.
However, when on March 12, 2023, the same old video of IPS officer Aniruddh Kumar, then posted in Meerut as additional superintendent of police (rural), again went viral, the then DGP DS Chauhan took cognizance and ordered a probe to be conducted by then Varanasi police commissioner.
Sources privy to the probe added that no transactions were found in bank accounts of the officer when he was posted in Varanasi. The officer had mentioned in the general diary that he had wanted to trap the accused in the rape case.