Tug of war on between Delhi Police and CISF

It’s a storm in the teacup of the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport. And it is gathering momentum as the Delhi Police and CISF are slugging it out in the aftermath of a trio being arrested for their role in a fake immigration scam on Sunday.

It’s a storm in the teacup of the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport. And it is gathering momentum as the Delhi Police and CISF are slugging it out in the aftermath of a trio being arrested for their role in a fake immigration scam on Sunday.

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The fact that the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) took over the investigation in the case has not gone down well with the Delhi Police as they believe it will hamper investigation into incidents of petty crime. The CISF, however, claim they’re simply doing their job.

“In yesterday's case, they handed over the accused to us after ‘interrogating’ them for more than eight hours. Their job is to maintain security and not investigate criminal cases,” said a senior police officer.

According to sources, the police are especially disturbed with a little exercise undertaken by the CISF on October 16 and 17 in which some eight persons were ‘needlessly interrogated for hours’.

The CISF, however, refuted the police’s claim. According to a senior CISF official, the police had been told about the apprehension of the trio at 2am before they were formally handed over to them at 5:30am.

On their part, the CISF not only claim that they have power of investigation, but also that they assist several passengers in retrieving lost items every day. “The passenger sees someone in uniform and asks them for assistance — and that person is usually a CISF officer. Later, they refuse to approach Delhi Police as the CISF officer has already scanned the CCTV footage and retrieved the lost item(s),” said a senior CISF official.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police are planning to shoot off a written complaint to the CISF as soon as a report on Sunday’s incident is submitted by investigating officers.