No theft from CRPF Rampur depot: Report

The state special Task Force (STF) had arrested two CRPF jawans posted at the C—S ¿ Vinod Paswan and Vinesh Si—gh ¿ along with a retired sub-inspector and four other policemen of the UP Police for alleged pilferage of live cartridges and shells on April 30. The STF team had allegedly recovered 245 kgs of the empty shells and 5,000 live cartridges from the possession of the accused then. During the investigation,the Rampur police had arrested 13 other policemen posted with the weapons stores at the police lines of different districts. All the 20 accused are currently lodged in the jail.

The CRPF had conducted a court of inquiry to examine the role of the arrested jawans. The DIG at CRPF Bijnor group centre in Lucknow,Manoj Kumar Dubey,had led the inquiry and had ordered for measurement of the stock of the empty shells (226 tonnes) to check the pilferage in May.

The Inspector,Weights & Measurement department of Rampur,Surya Bhan Singh said,“We got the weights and the beam-scale used in the measurement of the empty shells at the CRPF CWS two days ago. The CRPF had sent a letter requesting for getting the equipment checked in May,but sent it now. The machines were checked and found accurate.”

Singh also said,“Despite accuracy of the machines or the beam-scale,the exact weight of the shells can not be found during the measurement. There can always be a difference of several kgs in the process.”

When inquired in this regard,the STF SSP,Naveen Arora,said,“The accuracy in measuring the shells on weighing machines or the beam-scale cannot be assured. The difference would be in quintals when such a large quantity of the stock is measured with the machines.”

When asked if the CRPF report would affect the investigation or the charges against the accused,the SSP said that even if the court would ask for that report the measurement process would be verified again.