With probe on into the shoot-out incident involving rivals led by notorious criminals Cheenu Pandit and Sunil Rathi outside Roorkee sub-jail on August 9, 2014, Haridwar police has decided to seek police remand of deputy jailor Rakesh Verma who surrendered in the Roorkee court and was later sent to Haridwar jail on Thursday, said SP Rural Pramender Dobhal on Friday. Verma was allegedly involved in this case and he was absconding for the past few months. Another Roorkee Jail official Anand Prakash who was also allegedly involved in this case is still absconding. Earlier, Haridwar Court had issued a non-bailable warrants against deputy jailor Verma and Prakash.
Earlier, after the incident had occurred, SP Rural Dobhal had said to have recovered mobile phones, coolers and other luxurious items being used by these notorious criminals while they were lodged in the jails. The call details of the mobile phones revealed that the notorious criminal Rathi had chalked out the strategy to have Pandit murdered inside the jail campus that finally resulted in a gang war breaking outside the premises.
The three persons began firing shots indiscriminately from the car — they were travelling in — at the gate of the Roorkee sub-jail and fled the scene after accomplishing their task in a few minutes, leaving the law-enforcers flabbergasted. Three deceased were identified as Varun Tyagi, lokendra and Raman. Besides, six others were injured. This incident led to a blame game between the police and jail department officers over security arrangement inside and outside the jail campus, each passing the buck to the other.
Alarmed over the criminals taking security with chaff, the administration of jails was handed over to an IPS officer by the State Government, rupturing the longstanding tradition of leaving things to an IAS. Senior IPS officer PVK Prasad was made IG jail to stem the tide of security being trifled with.