Booked for ‘framing’ villager in 2017 drug case, Punjab ex-AIG arrested

The case dates back to 2017 when the then AIG had claimed to have seized 1-kg heroin from four persons in Amritsar. Investigation officer Jagjit Singh said the matter had been under investigation since then as one of the villagers from Patti district had moved the Punjab and Haryana high court

A retired assistant inspector general of police (AIG), Rachhpal Singh, was on Tuesday arrested by the Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) for allegedly framing a few persons in a drug case. Senior officials, wishing not to be named, confirmed that he had been arrested.

In 2022, the CBI had filed a chargesheet against 10 cops while maintaining that the accused had fabricated evidence to frame a resident of a border village.

The case dates back to 2017 when the then AIG had claimed to have seized 1-kg heroin from four persons in Amritsar. Investigation officer Jagjit Singh said the matter had been under investigation since then as one of the villagers from Patti district had moved the Punjab and Haryana high court.

Notably, in 2022, the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) had filed a chargesheet against 10 cops, including Rachhpal Singh, while maintaining that the accused had fabricated evidence to frame a resident of a border village. Among those chargesheeted were an inspector, two sub-inspectors, four assistant sub-inspectors and two head constables. They were charged under Sections 342 (wrongful confinement), 192 (fabricating evidence), 195 (false evidence to secure conviction), 211 (false charges), 218 (fabricating of record by public servant), 471 (using a forged document as genuine) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and also relevant sections under the NDPS Act.

The petitioner had moved the high court in January 2021, claiming that the cops picked him up from a hospital in 2017 and falsely accused him of smuggling heroin from Pakistan. He had further mentioned that a few more villagers were framed. The case was then transferred to the CBI.

Notably, Rachhpal Singh has worked closely in the STF, now known as ANTF, and was considered very close to Special DGP Harpreet Sidhu who has recently joined back Punjab cadre from central deputation in the CRPF. Sidhu was made head of the STF against drugs in 2017 by the then Congress government, led by Capt Amarinder Singh.