Delhi cop, three others, held for fake IT raid at bizman’s house

The suspects have told the police that they were working on a tip-off about a safe in the businessman’s house containing ₹400-500 crore, police said.

A Delhi Police head constable and an Income Tax department employee were among four people arrested for carrying out a seven-member fake IT raid at the west Delhi home of an elevator businessman earlier this week, the Delhi Police said on Saturday.

Police said the suspects had a tip off that huge amounts of cash were kept at businessman’s house, but they found nothing during the “raid”. (HT Photo)

The arrested suspects have allegedly told the police that they were working on a tip-off about a safe in the house containing R400-500 crore, but their ransacking of the house yielded nothing, police said.

Vichitra Veer, deputy commissioner of police (west), said a case of putting a person in fear in order to commit extortion, house trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint and a criminal act committed by several persons with a common intention has been registered at Janakpuri police station. “We caught the head constable, the IT staffer and two other suspects within 24 hours of the crime being brought to our notice. A hunt is on for the three remaining suspects,” said Veer.

The 61-year-old businessman, Kuljeet Singh, runs an elevator company with its office in Noida. He lives with his wife, sons and their families in Janakpuri.

A police investigator not authorised to speak to the media said the crime was planned by head constable Kuldeep Singh who was posted with the crime branch, and Deepak Kashyap who serves as the personal secretary of an IT department officer.

“Kashyap and Singh received a tip-off from an informer that R400-500 crore were kept in a safe at a particular spot in the businessman’s house. The suspects also heard about a land deal involving the businessman,” said the investigator.

Singh’s son, Ratan Sehgal, said the family didn’t keep cash at home. “Neither do we keep money at home, nor have we ever evaded taxes. Our family business is clean,” said Sehgal.

The officer said that a person identified only as ‘Sharma’, an informer named Ravinder, the policeman and the IT officer got together to allegedly plan the fake raid. “They also roped in three others, including a woman, to accompany them. While the four main planners decided to distribute the lion’s share of the money between them, the three accompanying people were promised smaller amounts,” the officer said.

The suspects planned to demand Rs12-15 crore in cash from the businessman in lieu of “settling” the case.

Sehgal said seven people landed at his house at 8.40am on Tuesday, 10 minutes after his father left his home for work.

The suspects first seized the mobile phones of Sehgal and other members of the Singh’s family as well as their security guard and confined them to a corner. “They searched every floor of our house, but found nothing. Then claiming that we had done tax frauds in a land deal, they tried to extort my mother for money,” Sehgal alleged.

Sehgal said one of the suspects was in police uniform and they all carried identity cards while claiming that they had a search warrant with them.

When the suspects couldn’t find anything, they left in a Mahindra TUV300 car, Sehgal added.

Once the suspects left the house, Singh’s family alerted the police. Investigators confirmed with the IT department and came to know that it was a fake raid. They then began searching footage from CCTVs from the house and nearby spots for clues about the suspects. “Unknown to the suspects, there were CCTV cameras in the house itself. That provided us footage of the faces of some of the suspects. Then, we checked the footage from some 150 CCTVs outside to confirm the registration number of the car used in the crime,” said the officer.

The car was found to be allegedly belonging to the policeman who was found to have even attended a G-20 related briefing in the hours following the failed fake raid, the officer said.

The policeman was subsequently nabbed on Wednesday, and at his instance the other three suspects were also apprehended. Once their involvement was confirmed, they were arrested, the officer said.

“A fourth arrested suspect was identified as Himanshu, a cab driver who lives in Rohini. He told us that he and two others (including a woman who was added to the team to make the action seem credible) were hired, saying that it was a genuine IT raid. But our probe has revealed that they were all hand-in-glove in the crime,” he added.