Maharashtra: SPCA suggests action against four cops after couple’s 5-year ordeal

Speaking to The Indian Express, the complainant, Damodar Parik, stated that the whole episode caused so much trauma that his wife has been receiving psychiatric treatment for the past five years. “My wife kept blaming herself for the loss, which led to her developing symptoms of depression… Her suffering drove me to fight all these years, and I hope that the government takes the SPCA’s recommendation into consideration and takes necessary action against them,” he said.

Parik is a small-time businessman from Aurangabad, and his wife, Seema, whose parents are from Chikhali in Buldhana, had visited her parents’ house in 2019. While she was returning to Aurangabad on the Nagpur-Aurangabad ST bus on June 14, 2019, three women came and sat near her. “She was carrying gold ornaments in her bag, and at around 11.30 am, a woman sat next to her while two others sat on the floor between two seats. They tried to engage her in conversation, and after some time, the three women alighted from the bus at Deolgaon Raja in Buldhana,” said Parik.

Seema later got off at the CIDCO bus stand in Aurangabad at 4.30 pm. Three days later during Vat Purnima, Seema wanted to take out the jewellery from her bag and realised that they were missing. She suspected that the three women had stolen them. The couple then went to a nearby Vaijapur police station in Aurangabad (rural) to lodge a complaint.

Constable Somnath Kachru Dhadvad, now retired, who was at the police station then, refused to register a complaint, citing territorial issue as Seema had alighted the bus in the jurisdiction of the MIDC CIDCO police station in Aurangabad city, Parik said. “We requested him to register a zero FIR and transfer the investigation to the police station concerned. Dhadvad refused and instructed us to go to the MIDC CIDCO police station or to wait for a couple of hours until his senior officer, Anant Kulkarni, came to the police station,” he added.

Hoping that MIDC CIDCO would take cognisance of the matter, the complainant and his wife travelled there. However, a constable identified as Gaikwad also refused to register a complaint, claiming that the three women suspected of stealing valuables from her bag had alighted the bus at Deolgaon Raja in Buldhana.
“As I insisted, police inspector Surendra Mahale accepted my application but informed me that they wouldn’t register an offence. On June 21, we went to the Deolgaon Raja police station in Buldhana to lodge a complaint, but they also refused to register an FIR,” said Parik.

Parik then wrote an email to the chief minister, the Home department, and the State Police Complaints Authority (SPCA). However, as nobody took cognisance of his complaint, he staged an indefinite hunger strike on August 15, 2019, in the tehsil office. “I started at around 8 am, and as it was the tehsil office, police personnel came and informed me that they were ready to register an FIR but they have closed the investigation and the jewellery is still missing,” he added.

Even after five years, he continued to fight against the inaction, leading him to pursue the matter with the SPCA, after which an order was passed on October 25. The order read, “It is found that Anant Kulkarni, then PI of Vaijapur police station; Surendra Malale, then PI of MIDC CIDCO; Somnath Kachru Dhadvad, then HC of Vaijapur police (retired); and Gaikwad, then PC of MIDC CIDCO, have committed serious violations of the law and abused their respective lawful authorities as contemplated under Section 22Q (1)(a)(viii) of the Maharashtra Police (Amendment & Continuance) Act, 2014. They have also committed misconduct as prescribed under Regulation No. 2(n) of the Regulations, 2017.”

The SPCA has further directed the state government to treat the order as a preliminary inquiry for the purpose of instituting disciplinary proceedings and to initiate disciplinary proceedings or any other legal action against the police officers.