Policing the police

While the jeweller has accused the three cops of robbing and harassing him, police officials say he is trying to pressurise them as he himself is an accused in five cases

It appears to be a case of guardians of the law turning lawbreakers. An FIR has been registered against a woman inspector and two other cops of Delhi Police's Crime Branch posted with its Special Investigation Team (SIT) for allegedly hiring goons to rob a jewellery shop in Rohini area of outer Delhi.


Big heist:u00a0 Scene inside the ransacked jewellery shopu00a0of
Sanjay Verma (inset), after it was looted of valuables and cash on
April 13. PICs/Subhash Barolia

A police official said that the robbery was committed at around 8pm on April 13.u00a0 Store owner Sanjay Kumar Verma was sitting inside the shop along with other staff members when two persons came inside and asked for some gold chains.

"All of a sudden they pulled out guns and three more aides joined them. They robbed 15 kg of silver, 5.5 kg of gold and around Rs 1 lakh in cash. Two male customers were present at the shop while two women had just arrived. The robbers held them hostage at gunpoint and locked them inside a cabin of the shop and fled. The robbers were wearing monkey caps. Sanjay alleged that inspector Arti Sharma and her team is behind the incident," said the police.

Long list
An FIR has been registered at Rohini South police station under sections 392 (robbery), 342 (holding hostage) 506 (threatening of dire consequences) and arms act on April 14. The official said that the accused - Arti Sharma, Sharad Kohli and Amit Tomaru00a0- operate from the SIT office of Crime Branch in sector 18 of Rohini.u00a0u00a0

Sanjay Kumar Verma alleged that the accused Crime Branch officials had been harassing him for quite a long time. He said that the trio wanted a huge amount of cash from him and when the money was not paid he was booked in five false cases. "On March 22 a Crime Branch team visited my shop and vandalised the interiors. They broke the CCTV cameras and removed the digital video recording system. When I asked them the reason behind this they accused me of purchasing stolen jewellery and took me along to their sector 18 office for interrogation," alleged the victim.

Sanjay added that the police team which was being headed by Arti Sharma also collected 43 gold chains worth Rs 5 lakh from his shop claiming that these had been stolen. The victim said that he was brutally beaten up by cops at the police station and was asked to pay Rs 5 lakh to secure his release.

'Chain' of events
The victim said that 23 gold chains were later returned to him and the rest were usurped by Crime Branch officials. He also alleged that the chains shown before court were not from his shop. "They called up my family members and said that they will book me under 20 cases of purchasing stolen property and demanded Rs 5 lakh.u00a0 They then booked me in five cases when we failed to produce the money," alleged the victim. Sanjay added that Crime Branch officials had taken the key to his shop. "They handed over the keys in court but denied vandalising the digital video recording system," he said.

The other side
DCP, Crime, Ashok Chand called Sanjay's whole story a fictitious account. He said that Sanjay has been involved in five cases and is deliberately accusing the crime team to be behind the robbery.
"He has deliberately taken the names of Arti Sharma, Sharad Kohli and Amit Tomar. He wants to pressurise us. Five stolen gold chains were recovered from him. Allegations that have been levelled by him against Crime Branch are false and baseless," said Ashok Chand.

Setting the 'record' straight
Hari Kishan Verma, Sanjay's father, said that on March 26 when Sanjay was being produced in Rohini Court, he was beaten up by a goon named Shalu who was hired by the cops. "Shalu asked us to pay Rs 1 lakh or threatened to attack me with a blade if I didn't comply.

He made me write a letter to my family members. Someone called Mallika, who was known to the goon, called up my father to hand over the money to her. This conversation was recorded by us and Mallika was caught red-handed. An FIR was registered at Prashant Vihar Police station. This incident clearly indicates that Crime Branch cops have been after me," alleged the victim. MiD DAY has a copy of the recording. Local police confirmed the incident and said that Mallika was arrested for extorting money from Hari Kishan.u00a0

'Frame' of mind
MiD DAY ha reported in January 19 how some Crime Branch officials allegedly framed two persons in a case of mobile theft. Udita, who works as a beautician had recorded voices of some of her friends in her mobile. When her friends came to know of this, they got angry. On December 31 at around 10:30 pm when Udita was heading home, her friends snatched her cell phone, removed the sim card and threw the phone away inside medical college campus. Following this, Udita lodged an FIR of mobile snatching by unknown persons with Barakhamba Road Police Station the same day but did not mention anything about her friends.

Sources added that the cell phone was found by the college guard the same day. As the phone was in the working condition, the guard started using it. As an FIR had already been lodged, the phone was under surveillance by Crime Branch officials. They found the phone active in New Delhi area and zeroed in on the guard. During interrogation, the guard told the Crime Branch officials that he had found

the phone in the college premises. The officials took the cell phone from his possession and promised him that no action would be taken against him. They however detained two ruffians from the area and showed that the cell phone was recovered from one of them. However, the case came to light when the investigation officer (IO) at Barakhamba Road police station came to know of the arrests and went through the call details of the cell phone.

The IO found out that the phone had been active for the last 15 days and when he questioned the college guard about it, the guard told him how he had found it and how three Crime Branch officials in plain clothes had taken the phone from him, sources said. The DCP (crime) was not available for comment.