Bihar: Conman posing as HC judge calls DGP for clean chit to official, arrested

The caller was a conman, allegedly acting on the behest of IPS officer Aditya Kumar — who had been removed as Gaya SSP in February on the charge of protecting liquor gangs in collusion with junior police officers.

Singhal complained to the Bihar Police’s Economic Offences Unit (EOU) a month after getting the calls, on October 14.

Now, the conman, Abhishek Agrawal, has been arrested along with three of his associates. The EOU of Bihar Police has booked all of them and one more person under the IPC Sections relating to cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy, among others.

The Bihar Additional DGP (Headquarters) told The Indian Express: “Calls from a conman to the DGP and closure of report against the IPS officer should not be seen together. Aditya Kumar has got anticipatory bail in the matter. It is true that a closure report in the case was filed but was based on findings of the investigation in the case.”

Asked if the Bihar Police was pressured by the calls, Gangwar said: “It is not fair to link these calls and police investigation.”

Aditya Kumar had been removed as Gaya SSP after the state police headquarters had received reports from then Magadh Range IG, Amit Lodha, about his alleged involvement in protecting liquor gangs. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar took serious note of the matter, and the Fatehpur police booked the then SSP on the charge of protecting liquor traders. The officer was later suspended.

Then came the calls from Agrawal to the Bihar DGP.

The Deputy SP of EOU, Bhaskar Ranjan, in his report to the SP on October 15, wrote: “Abhishek along with Aditya hatched a conspiracy to call up Bihar DGP SK Singhal posing as Patna HC chief justice Sanjay Karol by making WhatsApp and normal calls using phone number of one Rahul Ranjan Jaiswal (one of five accused). The DGP who looked convinced would call Abhishek addressing him as ‘sir, sir’.”

Within days of the calls made by Agrawal, the Gaya police gave a clean chit in the case to Aditya Kumar. The police report said it was a “mistake of law” to file a case against the then SSP. A co-accused in the same case, former Gaya police station in-charge Sanjay Kumar, continues to face the charges.

The conman told his interrogators that he had hatched the conspiracy on the behest of Aditya Kumar, whom he had known for four years.