Kanpur, Twelve retired police personnel have been booked in Kanpur, 35 years after a CB-CID inquiry found that 12 men were allegedly falsely implicated in a robbery case following a staged police encounter, a senior police official said on Tuesday.
The FIR was registered at Maharajpur police station on a complaint by CB-CID Inspector Sushil Kumar under sections of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code about fabrication of evidence, false charges, wrongful confinement and causing hurt. However, the subsequent CB-CID inquiry found the police version to be fabricated. They denied that any robbery attempt or encounter had taken place at the spot.
The case has been registered under IPC sections 194, 195, 182, 211, 218, 220, 323 and 342, Commissioner of Police Raghubir Lal told PTI, adding that the CB-CID would investigate the matter. The inquiry had named 18 police personnel, including the then station officer Vidyasagar Tripathi and investigating officer Ramesh Chandra Bhatole. The police team received a tip-off on August 22, 1991, that a group of armed men was planning to rob vehicles near Narval turn on GT Road, according to the FIR. Police claimed that the suspects blocked the road with babul branches around 12.30 am on August 23, leading to an encounter in which 12 men, including Rakesh Pathak, were arrested, a senior official said on condition of anonymity.
Six of them have since died, Lal said. The driver and cleaner of a DCM vehicle, Umashankar Pasi and Vijendra Singh, told CB-CID investigators that the police had picked up the men and taken them to Maharajpur police station in their vehicle.
The case originated from a complaint by Deo Prasad Pathak, elder brother of Rakesh, who alleged that Tripathi had demanded a 400-square-yard plot from the family without payment.
