Ostensibly at the DGP office recommendation, the state government posted IG Prem Prakash to the prime post of IG of Mirzapur Range despite him being named in an FIR pertaining to arson and plunder at the house of then state Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi. The complainant is now a cabinet minister in Yogi Adityanath government.
Known as a blue-eyed boy of former CM Mayawati, Prem Prakash was posted at PTS Unnao even when IPS officer Pankaj Kumar who investigated the Joshi arson case was posted in PTS Unnao.
Sources said that Prakash had tortured Kumar, then SP of CB CID for having the temerity to name him in the FIR and nail hiom in the investigation.
Interestingly, Joshi seems so helpless that even after becoming a minister, she has failed to get those officers arrested who responsible for burning her house.
After being sidelined in thee new regime intially, Prem Prakash played his card well and reaping the benefit of being in the good books of the police brass got himself posted as IG Mirzapur Zone.
It is now to be seen whether Joshi could apprise Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of his dotted past and get the top cop removed to some insignificant post and start legal proceedings against the officer, or watch silently and ignore.
Earlier, Samajwadi Party government initiated legal proceedings against police officials held guilty for arson in Joshi house during a probe made by CB CID. Subsequently, a criminal case was lodged against the then SSP of lucknow, Prem Prakash, then SP (East) Harish Kumar, Circle Officer of Hazratganj Bhagwan Singh Gabriyal (now retired) along with two Inspectors and four constables. The accused connived with politicians of ruling BSP to facilitate arson and loot in the house of the then state Congress president.
After a year, CB CID cleuths registered a case against all police officers at Hussaiganj police station and the senior officers who pressured them into the illegal act. As per the probe made by then SP (CB CID) Pankaj Kumar it revealed that the cops connived with ruling BSP leaders and that senior police officers involved in the criminal conspiracy got the staff and security removed from Joshi’s house to facilitate goons to torch the state Congress chief’s house and plunder it.
The probe pointed that some cops ensured that the exercise be completed without any hurdle and afte costly belongings were reduced to ashes, some dramatics were initioated to ‘act’ against the culprits.
Besides the cops, the then MlA of BSP, Jitendra Singh Babloo and Intezar Abidi were also charge-sheeted in the case. Babloo and Abidi were arrested in the case but the police officials have managed to roam free.