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The ‘mysterious’ accident that killed Assam woman police officer Junmoni Rabha
Junmoni Rabha’s mother has alleged that the investigation into her daughter’s death hasn’t proceeded well as police officers are themselves involved in the case.
The mother of the 30-year-old Assam woman police officer, who was killed in a ‘mysterious’ road accident during the early hours of May 16 in Nagaon district, alleged that the investigation into her daughter’s death hasn’t proceeded well as police officers are themselves involved in the case.
“If it had been any other case, it wouldn’t have taken so long and those responsible for my daughter’s death would have been nabbed,” Junmoni Rabha’s mother Sumitra told journalists on Tuesday.
The accident case was transferred to the criminal investigation department (CID) on May 16 itself and four days later handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). However, the central agency hasn’t registered a case yet.
However, police officials maintain that the process to hand over the case to CBI is underway. Till the central agency takes over, CID has been conducting investigations into the case and interrogating people, they said.
“The process (for CBI to take over the case) is going on. In the past three days, I have talked to seniormost officers in CBI over phone about the case. They have told me that it is in the final phase,” Assam director general of police (DGP) Gyanendra Pratap Singh told journalists on Tuesday.
Rabha, a sub-inspector posted as in-charge of Morikolong outpost in Nagaon district met with the accident on National Highway 37 near Sorubhogia in the same district. The incident-a head on collision between a small car and a container truck-resulted in the death of Rabha who was in the driver’s seat. There was no other passenger in her vehicle.
As news of the accident spread, questions began to be raised, especially on the local television channels, about the circumstances leading to the accident. Rabha had been in the news earlier and was a known name in the state.
Rabha, who joined the Assam Police in July 2017, first hit headlines in January 2022 when an audio of a telephone conversation between her and a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Amiya Kumar Bhuyan went viral.
In the tape, Rabha, posted in Majuli at that time, was engaged in a heated conversation with Bhuyan, who was upset that she had arrested some boatmen from his constituency, who were operating boats with illegally fitted machines. Following this, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that elected representatives should be given due respect.
She again grabbed eyeballs in May last year when she got her fiancé Rana Pogag arrested for allegedly cheating by posing as an officer of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and duping people of money by promising them jobs and contracts in the organisation.
The two incidents made headlines across the country, and some media outlets gave her the title of ‘Lady Singham’ based on the character of a no-nonsense police officer in a Hindi potboiler.
But the case took a twist when Rabha, who was still posted in Majuli, herself was arrested the next month for cheating based on a case lodged by two contractors. In their complaint, they alleged that it was the police officer who had introduced them to Pogag. Rabha was suspended and sent to 14 days’ judicial custody. The suspension was later lifted, and she joined regular service.
Rabha, who hailed from Kahilipara locality in Guwahati, was known as a plain speaking and gregarious police officer who loved to flaunt her police identity, according to her colleagues, who recalled her as a fearless officer and a good friend.
As news of her death spread, there was focus on events leading to the accident. It was revealed that on May 5, Rabha had lodged a case at Nagaon police station against nine persons from Nagaon and Lakhimpur districts accusing them of counterfeiting Indian currency notes and duping people by selling them.
As per the FIR lodged under sections of 489A and 489B of IPC, Rabha stated that she had received information about transaction of fake Indian currency notes (FICN) in Nagaon. On reaching the spot, she nabbed one person but was not able to recover any FICN from him. During interrogation, the person allegedly claimed that he knew someone else who might have FICN.
Based on that, a raid was carried out and around ₹2.25 lakh in FICN was recovered and a motorcycle and mobile phone seized. The accused person was found absconding from his house. It was stated in the FIR that the first accused also gave names of seven persons from neighbouring Lakhimpur district who were allegedly involved in manufacturing FICN and selling them to gullible persons as genuine notes.
Rabha was investigating this case and had visited Lakhimpur district as well in that connection when an FIR was lodged against her at North Lakhimpur police station on May 15 (a day prior to her death). The case was filed by one Amina Khatun, a resident of Barchala in Lakhimpur and mother of Ajgar Ali, one of the nine persons named in the first case as accused.
The case lodged under charges of criminal conspiracy, dacoity, wrongful confinement and extortion alleged that on the wee hours of May 6 Rabha had reached Khatun’s house along with seven civilians and had thrashed her son Ajgar and took him away. It alleged that Rabha took ₹80,000 in cash, gold earrings of Ajgar’s wife and also an SUV belonging to Ajgar’s elder brother.
It further stated that later on May 6, Rabha asked Khatun to give her ₹6 lakh if she wanted her son Ajgar and the SUV back. The complainant alleges that she gave the police officer ₹5.10 lakh in cash and the rest ₹90,000 through online transaction following which Ajgar was released, and the SUV returned. Khatun alleged that Rabha threatened to injure Ajgar in a staged encounter if he disclosed the transaction to anyone.
Rabha died within hours of this FIR getting lodged. The timing of the accident (1.45 am on May 16) and Rabha travelling alone in her personal vehicle at the time of the accident raised eyebrows. While it was initially suspected that she might have died in an accident, her mother Sumitra refused to believe the theory and alleged that there was foul play.
On May 16, a case was lodged at Jakhalabanda police station in Nagaon district under sections 279, 427 and 304A of IPC of rash driving and causing death due to rash and negligent act. It stated that Rabha’s car was going from Nagaon towards Jakhalabandha when the truck coming from the opposite direction hit her vehicle. The police officer was stated to have sustained grievous injuries and died later at hospital.
With questions being raised on the death, police handed over the case to CID on May 16 and asked it to probe both the case lodged against Rabha and the one involving the road accident that claimed her life.
At a time when media was highlighting allegations made by Rabha’s mother of foul play in her death, one person named Pranab Das, who claimed to be the lone eyewitness to the accident, told journalists a day after the incident that the police officer’s car was stationary when it was hit by the speeding truck. Das, who claimed to be a driver of a mini commercial vehicle, alleged that one person had left Rabha’s car a few minutes prior to the accident.
On May 18, two days after the accident, an audio clip of a telephone conversation went viral in which a person claimed that Rabha may have been killed prior to the accident and placed inside the vehicle. He also suggested that she may have been sexually assaulted as well. Police have interrogated this person, a police driver. Two days after the accident, the driver of the truck involved in the accident, Sumit Kumar, surrendered before police. Details of his interrogation are not available yet. Kumar secured bail a few days later.
Postmortem report of Rabha’s body, which came out on May 19, indicated multiple abrasions over knees, legs, elbows and hands, laceration over forehead, wound on back of head and underlying bone fracture and blood clotting due to injury and reddish bruise marks over right lower chest and right upper abdomen.
There were also multiple fractures of ribs on both sides, abdominal injuries with intra-abdominal hemorrhage. The report mentioned that all injuries were antemortem (happened prior to death) and ‘time since death is within 24 hours of postmortem examination’. The report, especially the mention of wound on back of head and fracture led to speculations that she might have been hit on the back of her head, which seemed unlikely in a head-on collision with another vehicle.
Amid all this, Rabha’s mother lodged an FIR in Jakhalabandha police station on May 19 against police personnel from Nagaon district and other on charges of criminal conspiracy, murder and wrongful confinement. In the complaint, she mentioned that Rabha left her police quarter in Nagaon around 6.30pm on May 15 after being summoned by district superintendent of police (SP), Leena Doley.
When her mother called her around 10pm, Rabha stated that she was with Abhajyoti Rabha, in-charge of Haibargaon police station in Nagaon, the FIR states. After that her mother found her phone switched off.
The same night (on May 16) around 1.30 am-2am, SP Doley and four other police personnel “forcefully entered” Rabha’s government quarter and allegedly took away ₹1.3 lakh belonging to Rabha’s mother and around ₹3 lakh from Rabha’s almirah. It alleged that several other documents were taken by the police team who took Rabha’s mother’s thumb impressions on a blank paper. The complainant mentioned that she came to know about her daughter’s death only the next morning.
The developments along with the allegations made by Rabha’s mother led the Assam police to recommend handing over investigation into the death from CID to CBI. DGP Gyanendra Pratap Singh told media persons on May 20 that all four cases would be handed over to the central agency for two reasons—public sentiment and probe by a neutral agency (as it involved death of a state police officer).
Singh stated that he was informed about Rabha’s death, the case registered against her and the one being probed by her only after her death on May 16. He said had he been aware of them (the two cases lodged prior to the accident) earlier, Rabha’s death might have been “avoidable”.
Since the circumstances leading to Rabha’s death and those after it questioned the role of several senior officers including police chiefs of Nagaon and Lakhimpur districts, Leena Doley and BM Rajkhowa, and all officers involved in the cases have been removed from their posts in the interest of a fair probe.
Rabha’s death has revealed the existence of big rackets involved in FICN and of duping people with fake gold and alleged police involvement in the nexus, which Rabha was also stated to be probing. Singh informed that a massive exercise will be undertaken to root out both crimes.
“I assure people of Assam that in the next 30 days both these crimes will be completely decimated from the state,” the DGP said on May 20 adding, “I have a message to all police personnel across the state. I shall be ruthless against any police officer found involved in any activity which is criminal in nature. If anyone is involved in such acts, it’s their own responsibility.”
Police are carrying out a separate investigation into the fake gold and fake Indian currency notes and the alleged nexus between criminals involved in both rackets with the police. Within two weeks of Rabha’s death, police had arrested 160 criminals involved in the rackets from all over Assam.
