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Journalism of Courage
Himachal Pradeshs Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) B S Thind,who is facing a series of cheating and forgery charges,was arrested here on Saturday in connection with a case of extortion lodged against him by a local businessman at Parwanoo police station in June 2007.
Thind was placed under suspension on the basis of an FIR at Parwanoo and a CBI inquiry against him was recommended by the states Home department last year. He was also been denied promotion by the department.
Thind was arrested in the morning when he was coming out of a district court after attending a hearing in a Vigilance case related to serious irregularities in a PSU Himachal Agro-India packing which he had headed in the capacity of managing director.
Soon after the arrest,Thind complained of uneasiness and chest pain and was rushed to the Indira Gandhi Medical College where he was admitted in the ICU. The doctors attending on him said since Thind was a heart patient,he will be kept under observation for 24 hours.
States Director General of Police G S Gill confirmed Thinds arrest and said an FIR under sections 384,420,120-B and 506 of the IPC and sections 9 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act was registered against him at Parwanoo.
A businessman,Ashok Mittal,had lodged a compliant against Thind early last year,claiming that the senior police officer had demanded money for getting a business premises at Parwanoo vacated for him. To support of his charges,Mittal had also provided a CD having a recorded conversion between him and Thind,who was then posted as ADGP (CID & Law and Order).
In the CD (a copy of which is with The Sunday Express),there has been repeated references of some senior police officers and a prominent politician of the Congress party. Mittal has alleged that Thind had taken money from him to get his shops vacated but he neither did the job nor returned the money.
According to Mittal,his first FIR,lodged during the rule of the Congress party in the state,wasnt considered and he had to lodge another complaint after the BJP returned to power. The then DGP Ashwani Kumar now CBI Director referred the case to the Government. Thind was considered close to former chief minister Virbhadra Singh,whom once he had referred as Godfather,a charge later denied by Singh.
According to sources,Thind,at one point,was also tipped to be made the DGP by the former Congress Government,but a district court ordered his prosecution in a criminal case of irregularities and thwarted his chances of occupying the high post.
In May 2007,Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal ordered the Parwanoo police to register the FIR against the officer and get the voice samples on the CD examined by the forensic lab at Chandigarh. The sampling of Thinds voice,said police sources,matched with the one found on the CD.
The controversial officer is also an accused in a bank loan fraud case being probed by the CBI,whereby home loans were acquired from several banks on the basis of forged papers. In 2006-07,he was arrested by the CBI in a forgery and cheating case and was suspended from duty. Later,the court had granted him bail and thereafter he was reinstated by the Government and posted as ADGP (Home guards).
Thind has been claiming that he has been a victim of professional rivalry.
(With inputs from Arvind Kashyap)
