The prime accused in the alleged attack on a trainee IFS official, Kalyani working with Terai-West Forest Division, Ramnagar, was finally arrested by Nainital district police. Kulvinder Singh alias Kinda, a native of Bannakhera, Baazpur (Udham Singh Nagar), was nabbed during a joint operation by a team of the Nainital district police and SOG from his residence at Bannakhera, Baazpur around 11.30 pm on Thursday.
With this, the number of persons arrested in connection with the case has risen to five. The others who had been arrested previously includes Sarjeet alias Sita, Satwant Singh alias Satta, Ranjeet Singh alias Jeeta, Surjeet Singh alias lali, all residents of Baazpur, as per information provided by Nainital district police. With the probe on, four other suspects, including Nagendra, Satnam alias Sonu, Palwinder alias Pinda and Sukhwant alias Bittu, are still at large. Efforts are on to nab them too, said a Nainital district police official.
Notably, the trainee IFS, Kalyani along with a team of forest officials were targeted when, acting on specific information, they had gone to stop illegal mining activities in Ramnagar’s Baintkheri area on the Dabka river bank around 11 pm on April 29. About 50 persons, including Kulvinder Singh, all supposed goons doing the bidding of the mining mafia, came out to attack them.
Subsequently, trainee forest official Kalyani got the matter registered at Bailparao police post on May 1. As per Nainital district police, Kulvinder Singh was involved in about 10 different criminal cases in the past in police stations — Bazpur and Ramnagar. This was third such incident of attack on the forest officials mounted at the behest of the mining mafias in Ramnagar area in the past two months.
The chairman of Uttarakhand Forest Development Corporation, Harish Dhami, was attacked in Ramnagar’s Koshi area on April 8. In the second incident, a Statehood activist Prabhat Dhyani and a social activist Munish Kumar were attacked on March 31 in the same Ramnagar region.