Threats & FIRs,it was the toughest case for this cop

When Rajbir sir and Mohanchand sir were killed in 2008,it left a lot of work for me.

For Surender Sand,investigating officer of the Delhi Polices Special Cell at the time of the December 22,2000 Red Fort terrorist attack,Wednesday was an important day. With the Supreme Court upholding the death penalty for main accused Mohammad Arif,Sand sees it as the culmination of the toughest case of his 40-year-old career.

It was a case in which his family received death threats,he had to face two FIRs including that of rape,and where he was left to do most of the heavy lifting with his seniors in the case,ACP Rajbir Singh and Inspector Mohanchand Sharma,being killed in unrelated shootings.

When Rajbir sir and Mohanchand sir were killed in 2008,it left a lot of work for me. I was inspector in the Special Cell then,and only I knew all the details of what we had uncovered during the investigation to put in front of the court, said Sand. Even after he retired on August 1,2010,the Delhi Police continued to call him as assistant to the prosecution counsel.

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Not only that,his involvement in the case sparked Sands interest in legal matters and he enrolled for a law course from the Agra University in 2006. It helped in our case to understand all the provisions, the 65-year-old said.

While Sand became the face of the police in the case,the lives of his children,Rohit and Rahul,17 and 15 at the time of the attack,changed considerably. Threat calls were common. Very often,my sons would want to abuse them back on the phone. But I asked them not to do that. I used to ask them to shut themselves in a room and shout out all the filth they knew and vent their anger. It calmed them down, Sand said. We read them the Gita after that, he laughed.

His sons have followed his footsteps in different ways. While Rohit is a sub-inspector,Rahul is completing his last year of law.

The two FIRs filed against Sand were dismissed by the court immediately. Sand said they were manufactured by associates of Arif.