Investigations into the an attempt to access call detail records (CDR) of senior BJP leader and leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley by a police constable has now led to the arrest of six people, including three police personnel of Delhi Police.
Although senior police officials of the special cell of Delhi Police denied direct link of the arrested persons to the Jaitley CDR case, but
the investigators claimed that their names had surfaced during investigations as they had procured the CDR of several Delhi-based politicians, bureaucrats, industrialists and sell it to three detectives separately.
Investigation also revealed that they were also providing CDRs to private eyes and after their arrest, two Sub-Inspector and two police personnel of North-East district are also under scanner. Meanwhile, they were produced before a city court on Thursday and sent to three-day police custody. Investigators are trying to ascertain whether they had attempted to get call
records of any politician
or bureaucrat.
Initially Arvind Dabas, a Delhi Police constable was accessing CDRs of powerful politicians like leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley and others illegally. The constable’s arrest led to the subsequent arrest of private detectives Neeraj,
Dr Anurag Singh and Nitish.
The accused police personnel have been identified as the assistant Sub-Inspector Gopal Das (49), posted with Khajuri Khas police station, Head Constable Harish Singh Negi (41) posted with ACP (Shahdara sub-division) and Constable Harish Kumar (37), posted with ACP (Samai Pur Badli sub-division).
“Other accused persons were identified as Mehraj Saifi, a home guard and two private detectives, Punit Verma and Alok Gupta, all worked for Anurag Singh and Nitish, who were running a detective agency,” a senior police officer said, adding that they were illegally accessing the CDRs since August 2012 to January 2013.
The arrest was made on Wednesday night from their residence and after sustained interrogation, the accused persons told investigators that after receiving the requirement from their customers, Dr Singh handed over some specific phone numbers to Neeraj and Nitish who in turn approached local detectives Punit and Alok.
The home guard, Mehraj Saifi, played the middleman between the detectives and police personnel.
“Through all these arrested police personnel, the accused detectives had sent requests for the CDRs of over two dozen cell phones for which they were to be paid Rs3,500 to Rs5,000 per cell phone number. They were procuring CDRs from the official mail ID of ACP Khajuri Khas, Samai Pur Badli sub-division,” said a police officer, adding that during investigation of Jaitley CDR case, investigators came to know that Anurag Singh and his detectives in connivance with police personnel had obtained CDRs of 52 people.
Investigators were scanning 22 numbers and this time, they found CDRs were procured from the official mail ID of ACP Khajuri Khas, Samai Pur Badli sub-division, Shahadra’s email ID and CDRs of Delhi-based politicians, bureaucrats, industrialists and CDRs of a businessman’s son were illegally accessed.