UP: 4 cops suspended for selling looted gold, setting burglars free
By : PTI
Update: 2024-10-21 12:51 GMT
Kanpur (UP): Four cops, including a station house officer and a trainee sub-inspector, have been suspended for allegedly selling looted gold seized from burglars after setting them free, officials said on Monday.The suspended police personnel include SHO Vijay Darshan Sharma, trainee SI Naveen Srivastava, and head constables Subhash Tewari and Aamil Hafeez, all posted at the Rail Bazar police station in Kanpur, they added.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Harish Chander said the thieves targeted the house of a teacher named Shalini Dubey, the wife of a Border Security Force (BSF) officer, when she was away at her school in Fatehpur on October 1 and decamped with valuables including gold ornaments
The woman filed an FIR at the Barra police station following which the police nabbed several individuals in connection with the case, the officer said. During interrogation, the burglars revealed that they were earlier detained by the Rail Bazar police before whom they confessed to their involvement in the crime.
The burglars reportedly apprised the Rail Bazar police about the jeweller to whom they sold the looted gold. During a probe, it was found that some cops from the Rail Bazar police station summoned the jeweller who returned the gold worth about Rs 25 lakh to the police, requesting them not to register a case against him.
The accused policemen got the ornaments melted and sold the pure gold extracted from them to another jeweller, the officer said. A police team headed by a circle officer was formed to probe the matter and submit a fact-finding report to Commissioner Akhil Kumar.
The four cops who were found guilty of selling the looted gold have now been suspended after being booked in a criminal case, the ACP said.