IAS officer claims CMO instructed against ‘proactive measures’

Pradeep,who is currently lodged in a Bhuj jail in connection with a post-earthquake rehabilitation land scam,is the second civil servant after DIG Sanjiv Bhatt to allege that the CM or his office gave specific instructions to allow Hindus vent their anger following the Godhra train carnage.

Pradeep has requested the SIT to allow him depose before it to give the exact date,time and nature of instruction that he claimed to have received from the CMO.

In his letter dated April 11,2011 — a copy of which is with The Indian Express — referring to the riots period when he was posted as municipal commissioner of Jamnagar,the IAS officer said he “received a phone call from the Chief Minister’s Office stating that I should ask my brother,K N Sharma,the then IGP Ahmedabad Range,that he should abstain from taking proactive measures in favour of minorities”.

Kuldeep was recently deputed to the Police Research and Development Department in New Delhi after he won a case in the Central Administration Tribunal against the state government for degrading his Annual Confidential Report.

Earlier,Kuldeep was named in an FIR registered by the CID (Crime) in connection with a 26-year-old encounter case,which was later quashed by the Gujarat High Court.

The CID (Crime) has also registered four cases against Pradeep in alleged land scams after the 2001 quake. Pradeep had alleged that the cases were registered by the government as the two brothers refused to follow their instructions.