‘False’ extortion case costs youth cop’s job

‘‘So long as this case is not dropped, I won’t get through the police verification that’s a must for the job,’’ he says.

Pandey says he was taking his sister Priyanka home on bike on September 9, 2000, when two sons of a Jharkhand Police SI teased her. Life hasn’t been normal since she filed an FIR against them.

‘‘Instead of punishing his sons Amit and Sumit for their crime, SI Nawal Kishore nabbed me and threatened me with dire consequences if Priyanka didn’t withdraw the case. On August 11, 2001, he dragged me out of my house, beat me up with rods and lathis in the lockup at Rajrappa police station and booked me in a false case,’’ says Pandey showing scars on his back and leg (see photo).

Enquiry revealed that Kishore was Rajrappa police station’s officer in charge when Priyanka lodged her complaint against his sons. To pressure her into withdrawing her complaint, Kishore reportedly made up a case against Pandey wherein he was charged with demanding Rs 300 from two men.

But deposing before the Hazaribagh judicial magistrate last year, the two men, Santosh Vishwakarma and Sudhir Kumar, affirmed they had never made any allegations against Pandey.

The other man, Vishwakarma, has this to say: ‘‘I had repaired a police jeep for which the Rajrappa police station owed me Rs 3,500. On August 12 last year, a station constable came and said bade babu (Kishore) had called me to pay the money. When I got there, I was given a blank paper and directed to sign it. Otherwise, the Bada babu threatened to kill me.”

Even as the extortion case fell flat, the Hazaribagh court issued an arrest warrant against Kishore on Pandey’s complaint. While the cop went underground, then Hazaribagh SP Deepak Verma placed him under suspension on January 15 this year. But Verma’s successor R.K. Mallick revoked the order and posted Kishore at the Police Lines in Hazaribagh on October 4.