Information Commissioner ordered to conduct a probe on the role of the cops of the Muzaffarnagar police, who alleged to have hushed up a mysterious `disappearance’ matter of a man reported more than two decades back. The family members alleged that the move was made by the cops as they were hand-in-gloves with the accused.
Information Commissioner, Hafiz Usman, who directed the Inspector General of Meerut Zone, Alok Sharma, to conduct a probe into the matter and submit his report for further action claimed to have also asked Sharma to look into the role of the cops and that how the matter was closed by them and that under what conditions, the family members were never informed of the development.
Reports said that one Ram Sharma (28), a resident of Bhandauda hamlet of Babri locality of Muzaffarnagar (now the police station comes in Shamli district), disappeared under mysterious circumstances on January 25, 1991. Ram Sharma’s wife Swarswati Devi, who was living then with her 6-year-old son Kuldeep Sharma, went to the police station and handed over an application on the same night. She alleged that her husband was kidnapped by dreaded criminal Ikram and later murdered. She claimed that the crime was committed at behest of Mahendra Sharma, with whom they had old enmity.
The cops of the then Muzaffarnagar police visited the spot and reportedly found the information true but instead of registering it as a case of loot, kidnapping and murder, the local police registered it as a case of `missing’ and that too on the complaint of than pradhan of the area, Rampal Sharma. When Swarswati Devi learnt of it, she met senior officers and pleaded for help. She also went to seek help from DIG Range Saharanpur and then IG Zone of Meerut, but as the culprits were very close to a very senior local politician so no action has been initiated.
Kuldeep Sharma, son of the victim Ram Sharma, who now took up the matter with the Information Commissioner, claimed that in 2012, he took help of the Right to Information (RTI) Act and filed an application seeking the investigation detail into his father’s missing case. He also asked that whom did the police interrogated in the matter so far and what efforts has been made to trace out the victim. He also asked that on whose complaint, the case was registered as `missing’. Interestingly, Kuldeep also learnt that one of the sub-inspector who initially probed the matter and altered the case from missing to kidnapping but before he could took any action, the investigation was transferred.
When the Shamli police did not gave any information regarding the above FIR citing that the case was very old and that they had no records, Kuldeep lodged an appeal with the Information Commissioner, Hafiz Usman court seeking his help into the matter. He also provided records of some 100 year old cases and requested Usman to intervene by informing him that if cops had so much old records than how the papers regarding his father case were missing.
Usman, who ordered IG Meerut Zone to probe the above matter and submit his findings, claimed that prime facie he found that some foul play on parts of the cops as they first altered the case from missing to kidnapping and again to missing and that they made no serious investigation into that matter. Usman said that in wake of the above, he asked IG of Meerut Zone to enquire the entire matter and submit a report for further action. He claimed that if the incident was found to by true and it also came up during probe that the cops tried to hush up the matter than he will take stern action and if necessary, would also get the accused cops removed from the department.