2,700 fugitives arrested, Delhi cop retires in league of legends

The year was 1989, and Delhi Police constable Jai Singh was inside the dingy Mayapuri police station, in a dark room, surrounded by a sea of musty paperwork

The year was 1989, and Delhi Police constable Jai Singh was inside the dingy Mayapuri police station, in a dark room, surrounded by a sea of musty paperwork. He was the “record munshi”- his job to maintain the daily diary entries and the FIR’s registered at the thana. He had been a policeman for seven years, but stable income of ₹543 a month apart, the work was mundane and tedious, and Singh was itching for some action.

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One day, his colleague Constable Padam Singh Rana told him that the trail of a man called Nepal Singh, accused in a rioting case in 1981and since declared a proclaimed offender, had turned up in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Rai Bareilly. He asked Singh if he would give him company. An eager Singh went to his SHO, and pleaded to be allowed to go. The officer was reluctant; keeping records was cumbersome but essential, he was told. “But I managed to convince him, and the two of us left for Rai Bareilly,” Singh said.

45-year-old Nepal Singh was an orphan with no permanent residence, flitting between one relative to the next, successfully off the radar for eight years. But finally, what his colleague had found was a small piece of land registered in his name. When they arrived at the village, their first port of call was the pradhan, who denied any knowledge of Nepal Singh’s whereabouts. But Jai Singh’s then nascent investigative instincts were tingling; the pradhan was lying. He came up with a plan. “We told the pradhan that we were going to the local property records office to look for Nepal Singh’s property. If they found it, they would attach the land with the case, and take action against the pradhan,” Jai Singh said.

The threat was empty; they were out of their jurisdiction. But instantly, the pradhan’s bluster broke. “He called Nepal Singh, a man he had denied any connection to, and told him to come to the village. After close to decade, we arrested him. It was such a thrill,” Jai Singh said.

There was no turning back. On June 30, 2022, 40 years after he joined the service, now Sub Inspector Jai Singh walked out of the Mandir Marg Police Station for the last time. He retired a Delhi police legend, tracking down and arresting 2700 proclaimed offenders over 33 years, earning two promotions along the way.

Singh’s journey in the Delhi Police is testament to his imagination and tenacity, hunting down people determined to stay incognito for years on end. But in many ways, hidden within is also the story of the evolution of the Delhi Police; a hark back to a time investigations were carried out by boots on the ground, wit and instinct the only allies; to Singh’s last few years on the force, where online dossiers were easily available, and technology was a friend.

ARRESTING PROCLAIMED OFFENDERS

A proclaimed offender is declared by a judicial process by which the person is stated to be a criminal and a judicial officer instructs police officers concerned to track the person down and produce them before a court of law. Typically, this happens when the accused is absconding for an extended period of time, and the court directs that the name and the details of the accused be published across media interfaces.

What this means for the police is an additional challenge. “Arresting a proclaimed offender is difficult because the person is clearly determined not to be found and often changes address, phone numbers and appearances,” he said. Often then, tracing these offenders is a process that takes years of perseverance.

In 2003, Singh was posted at the Parliament Street Police station, but one case from Mongolpuri was haunting him. An alias of the proclaimed offender was listed as “Sonu”. That, and that he was from a village in Mainpuri, was all the information they had.

In the late 1980’s, a woman was murdered, after she allegedly had an extra marital affair with a head constable posted at the Mongolpuri police station. His wife and brother-in-law found out, but didn’t have the courage to raise the issue. They contacted Sonu, an infamous local muscleman to scare the woman away, but she refused to be cowed down, and enraged by her irreverence, Sonu strangulated her to death. A case was registered, and the brother-in-law was arrested. Sonu however went on the run, and two years later, was declared a proclaimed offender.

Close to 15 years later, in August 2003, Singh and a colleague travelled to Mainpuri. Experienced by this time, Singh did not let on they were looking for a murder suspect, and instead told villagers that a body had turned up inside a pond at a gurudwara in Central Delhi with a suicide note that mentioned the name Sonu. All they wanted, was for Sonu to identify the body, they lied.

Nobody knew a Sonu, but a crowd had gathered, and one among them was the pradhan’s nephew, drunk out of his wits. “Loudly, he began telling his uncle that the man we were looking for was actually named Itwari Lal, also known as Sonu,” he said. Finally, Singh had a real name. The villagers took the two policemen to the home of Om Prakash, Itwari Lal’s father. The family however said they were estranged and that Lal stayed at a colony in Delhi near the Loni border with his elder brother Anup. The next day, they were at Anup’s home but were told he lived at a another siblings home in Delhi. That house, they found locked.

Two days later, an indefatigable Singh was back at this address, and this time he found a woman. “She was the younger brother’s wife but told us that she never let Sonu into the house. She told us that Sonu lives with Anup, and that the latter had fooled us,” Singh said.

In two weeks, Sonu filed for anticipatory bail in the Patiala House Court. He had made a mistake, and Singh capitalised. He tracked down his lawyer, pretended to be investigating another case apart from murder, and asked to meet him. The next day, at the lawyers chambers, Singh saw the man he had chased for so many years, and was taken aback. In his mind, he was Sonu; the muscleman murderer, vicious and well built. But in front of him was Itwari Lal, small, thin and frail, his cheeks sunken. “I could not believe my eyes. This was Sonu, the ruffian who the brother in law had roped in, had murdered the woman, and evaded the police for fifteen years.” An hour later, Lal had been placed under arrest.

THE ADVENT OF TECHNOLOGY

Over the years, particularly after the turn of the century, the explosion of technology meant the mechanics of Singh’s job changed. If earlier, every police station had to be visited to build a dossier of proclaimed offenders, suddenly this was available on the touchpad of his mobile phone. “Before, the station-in-charge or the duty officer, could often be difficult in giving us information. Now, because of the integrated Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System(CCTNS), all the available information is on our internal servers,” Singh says.

Singh didn’t always understand the technology, and sought assistance from his younger colleagues to track a location, or locate an active phone number. “But there is no doubt, all of this is invaluable, and changed the way we operated,” he says.

“There are times when the entire local population will make our jobs difficult. I have had cases in Mewat and Bhind Morena where the whole village will collect to ensure that the resident cannot be taken away. Now, what happens is that we get in touch with the local police and administration on the phone, gather evidence digitally, and leverage this to help in arrests. For instance, many of these accused in Mewat and Morena are drivers. We find out their details through the internet, and call them to the city pretending to give them jobs, and then arrest them. In the last four months, we have arrested 15 PO’s like this,” he says.

THE FUTURE

Singh rose three ranks- a rare occurrence in the lower echelons of the Delhi Police-becoming a head constable in 1996, an out of turn promotion as assistant sub inspector in 2005, and finally Sub Inspoector in 2013.

In 2010, when the first dedicated proclaimed offender team was created in the New Delhi district, Singh was a key component. The team had between four and five members, with the mandate to arrest PO’s from any jurisdiction. People came and went, but Singh remained, mentoring anyone in the team. Along the way, he earned goodwill, largely because many that worked with him were lauded for their investigations. In his home, neatly stacked in one corner, is a large pile of commendation rolls.

Assistant Sub Inspector Harveer Singh said, “It was because of working with him that I got a promotion. He is the most hard-working man I know,” Harveer Singh said.

DCP (New Delhi) Amrutha Guguloth lauded Singh’s work during his service and said, “He has done a brilliant job at catching criminals who have evaded the law”.

Singh says that he may now be retired, but the challenges that will confront the investigators of the Delhi Police, from people on the run wiping their digital identities, to transactions on the dark web, intrigue him. “With the increase of technology, some may be able to evade the law. But I must say that if criminals are becoming tech savvy, so is the Delhi Police,” he believes.

He intends to keep helping. He says, “I will come to the police station whenever they ask me to, and help with my expertise. The only difference is that now, I’ll do it for free.”