Police officers, lawyer held for graft

Exposing a deep-rooted nexus between police and lawyers, ACB sleuths arrested three crime branch officers and a senior advocate for demanding money from a father-son duo in connection with a murder case, HT reports.

Exposing a deep-rooted nexus between police and lawyers, Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) sleuths on Friday arrested three crime branch officers and a senior advocate for demanding money from a father-son duo in connection with a murder case.

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Abhinav Krishan Agarwal lodged a complaint with the anti-corruption branch claiming that the three officers and an advocate had been demanding money for clearing his father’s name. His father Gopal Krishan Agarwal was allegedly falsely implicated in a murder case.

Based on his complaint and supported with evidence by way of audio and visual tapes collected through sting operations since December 2007 till last week, the branch arrested Crime Branch officers Inspector KG Tyagi, SI Mukesh Kumar Walia and ASI Rajbir Singh and advocate Ravinder Chadha.

“The sting operation evidence clearly shows that Chadha was acting as a conduit for the illegal transactions of bribe on behalf of Tyagi in the murder case,” Additional Commissioner of Police (ACB) Dr N Dilip Kumar told media persons.

The sting operation tapes make it very clear that Tyagi, the investigating officer in the murder case, had asked Abhinav to get in touch with Chadha and to go ahead with whatever the advocate tells him, he said.

The Additional Commissioner, however, made it clear, “Our focus here is entirely on corruption. Whether or not Agarwal is innocent, the officers investigating the case have no business to demand a single paisa from him.”

DCP (ACB) ID Shukla said, “Prima facie, about Rs 25 lakh has changed hands in this case. However, no money has been recovered as yet.”

Abhinav was in touch with the department for last three months but a formal complaint was lodged only yesterday, Shukla said.

All the four were arrested from their respective houses on Friday morning and a case under sections 7/13(1) (a) & (d) and 13 (2) of Prevention of Corruption Act read with 384/120 B/34 of the IPC have been registered against them.

While the three Crime Branch personnel were remanded to three days’ police custody, the advocate was remanded to judicial custody for 14 days, Shukla added.