Six cops set to face departmental probe

The UT Inspector General of Police is all set to order a departmental inquiry against all the six Chandigarh Police officers who were suspended for their alleged involvement in a narcotics smuggling racket. While the preliminary report against the six has indicted them, the regular departmental inquiry will further elaborate the role they played in the racket and give them a final opportunity to defend themselves.

Talking to Newsline, UT Inspector General of Police S K Jain said: “The finding of the preliminary inquiry is with me. The regular departmental inquiry will be ordered by tomorrow. An officer in the rank of deputy superintendent will be entrusted with the task of conducting a thorough inquiry.”

The six suspended officers are Sub-Inspector Harinder Singh Sekhon and head constables Baljeet Singh, Bachhitter Singh, Sukhjinder Singh, Kuldeep Singh and Mohan Singh. All were posted in the Special Crime Investigation Cell of the Chandigarh Police. While five of them were placed under suspension on August 4, following a report forwarded to the UT Police by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Chandigarh zonal unit, Head Constable Mohan Singh was suspended on Tuesday.

The NCB had arrested one Harpal Singh alias Raju, a student of M.Phil in Panjab University, in July in connection with a drug abuse case. Based on the disclosures that he made during interrogation, the NCB forwarded a report to the IGP, naming the six police personnel. The UT police kept mum over the issue for several days, but had to initiate action against its men once the Punjab and Haryana High Court summoned the IGP and the NCB director, seeking their reports on the alleged police-drug mafia nexus. The UT police then placed five of its personnel under suspension and submitted its report in the court, taking the plea that they had already initiated action against the erring personnel and the matter was being inquired into. The next hearing is in November.

Before his arrest in July, the accused in the NCB’s case, Harpal Singh alias Raju, had figured as a complainant in a similar case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation last year. On Raju’s complaint, the CBI had even arrested a Chandigarh Police Sub-Inspector Ved Prakash on charges of graft and possessing narcotics, which were recovered from his office.