E-Paper
Ludhiana | Sham guarantors keep POs away from police net
Out of 427 POs registered with Ludhiana GRP earlier in January, local railway police have so far nabbed 17 POs this year, and two had died; a senior GRP officer on the condition of anonymity said, “The prevalent nexus of agents with a few advocates who get the bail bond signed by the guarantors in lieu of money is the key reason behind the increasing POs in the state
To nab proclaimed offenders (POs), the Government Railway Police (GRP) is all geared up to tighten its noose around fake bail assurers or persons against whose guarantee POs were released on bail.
Moreover, in the absence of resources required to curb the increasing toll of POs, the GRP is struggling to nab them, despite now having separate PO cells in each district.
A senior GRP officer on the condition of anonymity said, “The prevalent nexus of agents with a few advocates who get the bail bond signed by the agents in lieu of money is the key reason behind the increasing POs in the state. Maximum POs are migrants and they don’t appear in the court or abscond,making it difficult to nab them as they mostly stay in rented accommodations and change their address after being released on bail.”
Now, in order to stop this practice, GRP has initiated a special drive to locate the assurers.
“While most of these assurers won’t be aware of the whereabouts of the accused as they never met the person before, we are hoping that a few assurers may be genuine and would be able to help us to trace the whereabouts of these POs. We have so far located the address of 18 such assurers and will soon contact them, seeking their help to nab the accused. Strict action will be taken against the fake agents now,” a GRP officer in Ludhiana said.
Surprisingly, out of total723 POs registered with the GRP in the state, a total of 408 POs are registered with Ludhiana railway police.
Out of 427 POs registered with Ludhiana GRP earlier in January, local railway police have so far nabbed 17 POs this year, and two had died.
Moreover, out of the total POs registered with the GRP across the state, 250 accused are natives of Punjab and rest belong to the other states.
According to the officials, the maximum POs are migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Moreover. according to the officials, out of 723 POs, the GRP have failed to arrest 30 accused and thus, they have been registered under Sections 82/83 (a court can publish a proclamation requiring the accused to appear if the warrant issued against him cannot be executed) of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) , and rest 693 POs have been booked under Section 299 of CrPC (record of evidence in absence of accused if it is proved that an accused person has absconded) as they jumped their bail and didn’t appear before the court.
Fund and staff crunch
An officer, however, said the state should have a PO cell with a workforce of 50 people.
Meanwhile, GRP PO staff is also struggling with finances, lack of official vehicles and staff crunch.
Sharing an instance, a GRP personnel said Ludhiana PO team had to spend ₹16,000 from their pocket to bring a PO from Pulwama on production warrant. “We sought an official vehicle to bring the PO, but we were denied the same stating non-availability of vehicle and budget. Eventually, Praveen Kanda, superintendent of police, investigations, permitted to bring the accused. We travelled till Jammu on a train and later, hired a private cab to reach Pulwama, which is a sensitive area, but we never received our expenses,” the official added.
However, a recently retired GRP official also blamed investigating officers for not writing complete details of the accused, including the proper address, photograph, details of the relatives, etc, which ultimately makes it difficult for the PO staff to trace the accused.
Meanwhile, Kanda said special instructions have been given to the staff to nab the POs hailing from Punjab on priority. “We have been able to successfully trace many of the POs. The teams are focusing more on the absconders from Punjab though they also travel to other states to nab other accused,” he added.
