Suspended UP IPS officer gets Khemka, Chaturvedi backing

Suspended Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Amitabh Thakur, who is locked in a tussle with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, on Sunday got moral support from noted Haryana bureaucrats Ashok Khemka and Sanjiv Chaturvedi.

Khemka, a 1991-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Haryana cadre, shot into limelight when he cancelled the mutation of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra’s illegal land deal in Gurgaon. Similarly, Sanjiv Chaturvedi, a 2002-batch Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer of the Haryana cadre, locked horns with the Haryana government for “deliberately” denying him the right to promotion. He too exposed several corruption cases in his department.

“Khemka and Chaturvedi called up Amitabh on Sunday, saying that they extend their moral support in his fight for justice. The officers said they are sure Amitabh will emerge victorious in this case,” said Nutan Thakur, Amitabh’s social activist wife. Amitabh said these words from the “finest officers had boosted his morale in his fight for justice”.

Amitabh had stirred a political storm by releasing the text and audio of his alleged conversation with Mulayam, in which the latter had allegedly threatened him over phone. Thakur said Mulayam threatened him after his wife Nutan filed a complaint before the Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta against state mines minister Gayatri Prajapati.

He was suspended on July 13 by the state government, hours after he approached the Union home ministry in New Delhi, seeking a CBI probe into the rape charges slapped against him soon after he lodged a complaint against the SP chief for allegedly threatening him on July 11.