Failure to solve several murder cases and arrest the culprits in the State capital in the last one year has raised a question mark on police efficiency. Dehradun police have yet to make any headway in recent murders of two property dealers in broad daylight by unidentified persons. Moreover, in connection with murder of property dealer Firoz Ali on January 16, one of the accused Digpal Sirohi surrendered in the Bulandshahar (Uttar Pradesh) district court on Monday for crimes committed there. Another accused Deepak Kumar had also surrendered in Ghaziabad court few days ago for crime committed in UP. Rajpur police station officer said that both the accused would be brought to Dehradun on transit bail to solve the case.
Observers opined that most of the murder cases in Dehradun have a link with criminals of Bijnor, Ghaziabad, Saharanpur and other parts of Uttar Pradesh. It has been observed that after the crime, district police head forms several teams that are deployed at various places within the State and parts of Uttar Pradesh to apprehend the culprits. Statistics revealed that in most of the murder cases, these teams came back empty handed. This has exposed the lack of police planning to deal with such murder cases in the state capital.
Moreover, Dehradun Police have yet to solve high profile murder cases of two women —Neeru Saini in Dalanwala Police Station area and 70-year-old woman Rajesh Sharma who was a relative of additional DGP Ram Singh Meena in Patelnagar Police Station area. Police have neither found concrete lead from questioning suspects nor ascertained the motive for these murders. No arrest has been made so far in connection with murder of Patelnagar resident Sahaspur Village Development Officer Devesh Kamboj in broad daylight by unidentified persons in December last year even though police had identified the accused.
Dehradun police are yet to make any breakthrough in the case of the naked headless body of a woman found a kilometre away from Raj Bhawan and Chief Minister’s residence last year. Raipur police station officer said that after the murder of Firoz Ali at his rented home in Jakhan (Rajpur Road), teams of sub-inspectors and Special Operation Group were formed and deployed at various places of Uttar Pradesh to nab the accused.
According to him, two accused- Ankush and Rupak were arrested. During interrogation, it was revealed that angered by suspected extramarital affair with his wife, Digpal had conspired to murder Ali and his neighbour Rahul. Digpal had hired Shamli (Uttar Pradesh) native Deepak to murder Rahul and Ali. Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Rautela expressed disappointment at increasing murder cases in the state capital and said that after assuming charge of Dehradun SSP, he had directed all the police station officers to take steps for solving old murder cases.