UP former IPS officer Amitabh Thakur arrested for forging IDs to get industrial plot in 1999

The FIR against Thakur and others was registered at Talkatora police station in September on charges of fraud, cheating, and related offences, following a complaint filed by Sanjay Sharma, a resident of Talkatora.

To ensure a fair and transparent investigation, DCP Srivastava constituted the SIT. Police said as part of the probe, the team gathered documentary evidence from Deoria, verified the alleged false identities and addresses in Bihar, examined official records, and questioned multiple witnesses.

The case

According to police, the complainant, Sharma, alleged that when Thakur was serving as Deoria SP in 1999, his wife, Nutan, secured the allotment of an industrial plot from the District Industries Centre, Deoria.

For this allotment, she allegedly used false personal details — replacing her and her husband’s real names and addresses with fabricated ones, and a fake residential address.

Sharma further claimed that Nutan prepared forged documents — such as the application form, affidavit, treasury challan, and transfer deed — to mislead government departments. He also alleged that she benefited from her husband’s official position, which provided protection and support for these actions.

The complaint further alleged that the plot was later sold using the couple’s real names and address, thereby keeping government agencies, banks, and other stakeholders in the dark for a long period.

According to police, the SIT found sufficient evidence to proceed against the accused after which Thakur was arrested.

Not his first brush with the law

The former IPS officer has seen his share of controversies over the years.

In July 2015, while serving as Inspector General, Civil Defence, he was suspended by the Samajwadi Party government days after he publicly accused then SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav of allegedly “threatening” him.

The suspension order stated that Thakur had been found prima facie guilty of “indiscipline,” holding an “anti-government point of view,” “violating High Court directions,” showing “indifference toward duties and responsibilities of his post,” and “breach of service rules”.

In 2016, the UP government reinstated Thakur. The central government had held that his suspension was not valid after October 11, 2015, as it was extended only after the period of 90 days since the first suspension order.

In March 2021, the Union Home Ministry gave premature retirement from service to Thakur, a 1992-batch IPS officer, in “public interest”.

The same year, in August, Lucknow Police had arrested him from outside his residence in Gomti Nagar on charges that included abetment of suicide of a rape survivor and her friend, who had set themselves on fire outside the Supreme Court and later died at a Delhi hospital.

The 24-year-old survivor had accused then BSP Lok Sabha MP Atul Rai of allegedly raping her at his Varanasi residence in 2018. She had also alleged that Thakur assisted the MP in harassing and intimidating her to withdraw or weaken her case.

Rai was later acquitted in the rape case.