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Forged Punjab Police promotion orders: Accused also prepared fake order to hire two constables
Police said the five accused had also produced fabricated orders by a former DGP to recruit two constables, including the son of one of the accused, Harwinder Singh, who remains at large
The five men arrested for forgery of promotion orders of 11 Punjab Police personnel had even fabricated the recruitment orders of two constables under the name of a former DGP.
The five accused, inspector Satwant Singh Sidhu, posted in Mohali; a dismissed sub-inspector, Sarabjit Singh; Sandeep Kumar and Bahadur Singh, both working as superintendents in Punjab DGP’s office; and head constable Mani Katoch, whose name figures in the forged promotion list, are currently in police remand.
They were arrested in the past week following a complaint by Vibhor Kumar, a staff officer with the Punjab DGP office, Sector 9, Chandigarh. He had complained to the Chandigarh Police that he had received four fake promotion orders under the forged signature of former Punjab DGP, Siddharth Chattopadhyaya.
Sources in the police said apart from these forgeries, the five accused had also produced fabricated orders by the former DGP to recruit two constables, including the son of another accused Harwinder Singh, who remains at large.
This order is also dated January 8 and is issued to the Mohali SSP, stating that the two candidates, Paramvir Singh and Amandeep Singh, have been “approved for establishment of constables as special case.” Paramvir is the son of Harwinder.
Not just this, the accused had even forged the DGP’s signature to remove bad entries from the annual confidential report of inspector Satwant.
Police said inspector Satwant and dismissed SI Sarabjit approached other police officials with promotion offers, claiming good relations with the DGP. For this, they held meetings at the latter’s house.
After being introduced by Sarabjit, Harwinder collected ₹5 to 10 lakh from each beneficiary, and paid ₹50,000 to Sandeep and ₹20,000 to Bahadur.
Mani, who was recently transferred from Amritsar to 13th Batallion, Sector 1, Chandigarh, typed the forged orders in the laptop of Sandeep on his instructions, following which the latter and Bahadur handed over the promotion order to Harwinder, who further gave it to Satwant.
The inspector then managed to forge the former DGP’s signature, and Sandeep with the help of Bahadur, made the orders’ entry in the dispatch register of the branch and circulated them.
Harwinder was introduced to Sandeep by another Inspector
Sources said accused Harwinder was close to an inspector, who was earlier posted in Mohali. Harwinder remained posted with the said inspector in various police stations, including Mataur, Sohana, Kharar and even Mohali’s economic offences wing. The said inspector also maintains good relations with accused Sandeep.
