© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
In a photograph clicked at Bhachau police station in Gujarat’s Kutch in the early hours of July 1, the arrested duo stood staring at the camera, their hands folded behind them. The alleged bootlegger, in a blue button-down shirt, and his ‘accomplice’, head constable Nita Chaudhary, 34, wearing a white T-shirt and yellow pants, and with a hint of a smile on her face.
The events that followed the dramatic chase and arrest of Chaudhary, head constable of Gujarat’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID), and Yuvrajsinh Jadeja, 30, who has 15 cases of alleged bootlegging and one attempt to murder case registered against him at Bhachau police station, have kept the Gujarat Police busy.
All this, while it grapples with a new problem: Chaudhary’s popularity on social media. “Since her arrest, her Instagram followers have more than doubled and gone past 1 lakh,” says a police officer. Chaudhary’s bio on Instagram describes her as an “artist” and has reels of her lip-syncing to popular numbers. The reels also feature an SUV, which the police say was the one she and Jadeja were in when they were intercepted on June 30.
According to an FIR registered that night, a joint team from the Bhachau police station and the Kutch East police crime branch received a tip-off that Jadeja, wanted in four cases registered under Gujarat Prohibition Act, was in an SUV headed towards Gandhidham town. The team started tailing the car around 6.30 pm near Samakhiari, a village on NH 41. Minutes later, they intercepted the SUV under a railway overbridge, some 22 km from Samakhiari. At the wheel, the police say, was Jadeja, while their colleague Chaudhary, a head constable attached to the Gandhidham CID (crime), was in the passenger seat.
The police say more drama ensued since Jadeja, despite repeated directions from the police, neither came out of the car nor did he lower the SUV’s window. The police eventually broke the window and detained him, adds the FIR. The police arrested the duo and, based on Bhachau’s police sub-inspector (PSI) Dineshkumar Zala’s complaint, filed a case under IPC sections related to attempt to murder, among others.
The police also recovered from the SUV 16 bottles of Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) and two beer cans, cumulatively worth Rs 1,880. They filed another case, under the Gujarat Prohibition Act, against the two.
On July 2, a local Bhachau court rejected the police plea seeking the duo’s remand in the attempt to murder case and sent them to judicial custody instead. The next day, the magisterial court granted Chaudhary bail in that case. Before she could walk out of jail, the police took her into custody after securing a transfer warrant on July 3, and arrested her and Jadeja in the prohibition case. The duo are now lodged in police custody. The Home Department has since suspended Chaudhary from service.
The police said the vehicle in which Chaudhary and Jadeja were travelling didn’t have a registration plate and was registered in the name of a local journalist.
On how a CID (crime) constable ended up in a car being driven by an alleged bootlegger, the officer said, “During interrogation, Chaudhary said that she and Jadeja came in contact via Instagram and Facebook around six months ago and became friends.”
Jadeja is a resident of Juni Moti Chirai, a village on the outskirts of Bhachau town, while Chaudhary belongs to Moriya village in Banaskantha district bordering Rajasthan. Chaudhary is married to Virsang Bhutadiya, the former sarpanch of Badarpura (Bhutedi), a village adjoining Moriya. The eldest of four siblings, her father is a farmer in Moriya.
Chaudhary’s fondness for social media has got her in trouble in the past. She once shared a video of a “drinking party”, following which she was transferred to a difficult location as a punishment, said an officer, adding, “She hails from a family of politicians in Banaskantha district in north Gujarat.”
Chaudhary joined the Gujarat Police in 2015-16 and was posted in Kutch East district. She served in police stations in Bhachau and Gandhidham before being attached to the local crime branch. In August 2021, she was deputed to CID (crime) in Gandhidham.
“After two cases were registered against her, CID (crime) repatriated her to Kutch East Police on Tuesday (July 2). Following her repatriation, we suspended her from service in view of the two criminal cases registered against her,” Sagar Bagmar, Superintendent of Police, Kutch East Police, said.
Meanwhile, the Kutch East Police are making efforts to convince courts about the prima facie cases against the head constable. Police had produced the duo in the court of D S Dabhi, additional chief judicial magistrate of Bhachau on Monday evening, seeking their remand for seven days in the case of attempt to murder. Police told the court that Chaudhary had purchased the liquor from Abu Road, a town on the border of Rajasthan and Gujarat, and that she was on her way back to Gandhidham in the Thar when Yuvrajsinh joined her from a hotel in Samakhiari.
Before she was booked in the Prohibition case, the court had granted her bail in the attempt to murder case. “… if the accused is denied bail just because she was sitting in the seat (beside the driver’s) in the Thar car will amount to pre-trial conviction,” magistrate Dabhi noted in his order granting bail to Chaudhary.
“We brought to the notice of the court that this very court had on Tuesday rejected a police application seeking her remand as the court had found no reasonable grounds for remand. We submitted that when there is no need for her custodial interrogation, the applicant being a woman should be enlarged on bail under CrPC Section 437,” her lawyer Dilip Joshi told The Indian Express.
