Police cooked up Daler charges, now they begin to eat their words

When contacted, Umranangal, who has since been transferred, refused to comment. ‘‘The CM and the DGP have already made statements, I would not like to say anything in this regard,’’ he said.

n On October 11, the Sadar Police station registered a case on a complaint filed by ASI Harinder Singh of the computer cell, alleging that a secretaryof Daler had called up his residence and threatened to liquidate his children if he did not delete important information from a computer that the police claimed to have seized from Daler’s office in a raid in New Delhi.

But fresh investigations under Patiala SSP Amardeep Singh Rai reveal that the computer was never Daler’s. It was seized from the Connaught Place office of Daler’s estranged brother, and main accused Shamsher Mehndi. Says Daler’s counsel Brijinder Singh Sodhi: ‘‘Daler has no secretary. Then the ASI was never able to show that any phone call was received by him. Daler also showed the police all his cell and phone records, which revealed that he had not called up the ASI. The case was lodged by the police merely to block Daler’s interim bail.’’

Rai says the police ‘‘are moving for cancellation of the case for want of supporting evidence. The police have not been able to trace the telephone number from where the call was made, and an untraced report is being sent to the court for cancellation of the computer case.’’

* In the FIR lodged by Bakhshish Singh at the Sadar Police station on September 19, he had alleged that on August 12, 2003, he had given Rs 1 lakh to Daler and Shamsher in New Delhi for returning his passport. Bakshish alleged that he had paid Rs 2 lakh earlier to Shamsher and his associates as part of the deal struck for Rs 12 lakh to send him abroad. But he had neither been sent abroad nor was his money or passport returned.

‘‘We found that on the day that Bakshish says he handed over money to Daler at Shamsher’s Connaught Place office, the singer was at home celebrating Raakhi. Computerised date printouts on photographs prove that. Cellphone records of Daler too prove that he was not at the Connaught Place that day. We questioned many persons in Shamsher’s office and around it and none said that Daler had ever visited the office. Even on the inuaguration of Shamsher’s office, he was not there as is evident from photographs,’’ said Rai.

Interestingly, the first police diary (‘jimni’) recorded on the day of Shamsher’s arrest in the presence of Bakshish Singh has him admitting that he duped several people on the promise of sending them abroad. Shamsher also confesses that he shared the booty with Tejinder S. Laddi and Surinder Singh. There is no mention of any money having been paid to Daler.

The only reference to Daler by Shamsher in that ‘jimni’ is that he used to tell the prospective youths that he would send them abroad with his brother, a well-known singer. Shamsher also confesses to having used the money to buy a Scorpio and raising a bank loan.

The Patiala police, however, are convinced that Shamsher is guilty of fraud. ‘‘Our investigations have shown that the two Mehndi brothers were estranged and that Shamsher not only used Daler’s name but also impersonated him. In one instance, Shamsher sat in a car dressed like Daler. A prospective youth was shown Shamsher from a distance and told he was Daler, just to convince them that the popstar was party to the deal,’’ said Rai.