GADVASU professor arrest: FIR was filed on complaint of Batala‘s senior police officer’s wife, probe shifted to Gurdaspur Police

The officer’s wife works in Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, on a project in school of business studies.

“After the family of the accused professor requested for a fair investigation, the probe has been shifted to Gurdaspur police. You can’t be a judge of your own cause. It was a clear conflict of interest. Ideally, the FIR should have been registered in Ludhiana where both varsities are located but the officer got the FIR registered on his wife’s complaint in Batala itself,” said a police source.

The probe has been now shifted to Gurdaspur Police on the orders of DIG (Border Range) Nanak Singh.

It is alleged that Dr Navdeep Singh “circulated defamatory bulk e-mail” against the officer’s wife and a PAU professor using “fake email IDs”. The e-mail was sent to at least a thousand recipients including the PAU faculty, vice-chancellor and some students, said a police officer investigating the matter.

“After receiving the police complaint, a probe was conducted and it was found that the accused used official WiFi connection in vet varsity’s campus to create fake IDs and sent the mails. The wifi of a hotel in Delhi was also used,” said the officer.

The FIR was registered at Cyber Police station, Batala, under the offences such as forgery, forgery committed to harm someone’s reputation, criminal breach of trust, cheating by pretending to be some other person etc under the sections of BNS, and other sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act.

Sources in the PAU said that the e-mail in question primarily had raised question marks on the promotion of Dr Ramandeep Singh as the director of PAU’s School of Business Studies and alleged that he was a “Green card holder” in the US and “mostly remains on ex-India leave”. However, a paragraph in the mail also mentioned the senior police officer’s wife. The mail alleged that Dr Ramandeep Singh was trying to get her recruited in PAU “using his influence”.

PAU sources further said that Dr Navdeep and Dr Ramandeep had “old enmity.”

The Batala police has also claimed that another woman assistant professor from PAU connived with Dr Navdeep in sending the mails, and police also wrote to vice-chancellor Dr SS Gosal to “suspend” her. But Gosal said that they will “first take legal opinion on the matter”. “Police has not arrested our faculty member yet so we cannot suspend her without legal opinion,” said Gosal.

Meanwhile, Dr JPS Gill, vice-chancellor, GADVASU confirmed that Dr Navdeep Singh has been suspended from the university. “Since he has been arrested by the police, he stands suspended,” said the V-C.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Dr Achla Sharma, a senior wheat scientist in PAU and wife of Dr Navdeep Singh, said that her husband has been framed. “Someone has misused my husband’s ID and system to send those mails. My husband has been framed. We are being harassed like anything. We have no idea why Batala Police has come all the way to Ludhiana to arrest my husband. We will go to any extent to get justice.”

Confirming that the probe has been shifted to them, SSP Gurdaspur Aditya said: “I have further marked the probe to SP (investigation).”

Despite repeated attempts, the senior police officer in Batala did not respond to calls and messages.