Shots fired at Public Works Department Engineer Samrendra Prasad in a high-profile locality on Monday has been a big blunder on part of police forces, accepted Ranchi SSP Prabhat Kumar, given that the victim had contacted the local police station a day before the incident came to pass.
“Prasad had filed a complaint at Argora police station against infamous criminal luvkush Sharma over demands of extortion money to the tune of `1 crore. They had arrived at the police station at around 3 pm and even offered to submit evidence related to the complaint. But their pleas were ignored by police officials manning the station, showing blatant negligence which led to grave consequences,” Kumar stated.
Against the apathy shown, Argora police station’s officer in-charge and the officer looking after the extortion case have been suspended from their duties. In a meeting, attended by the SSP, City SP Jaya Roy, Rural SP Rajkumar lakra and DSPs, OCs from all police stations within Ranchi’s city limits were advised to carefully attend to complaints coming to them.
This will be the final warning to the police officials working in the city, stated Kumar.
As of now, police forces are on the lookout for Sharma. “After the shoot-out, Sharma called Prasad’s family, establishing him as the prime suspect in this case. We have formed several search teams for locating his whereabouts, operating within and outside the state. Ten individuals have been detained on grounds of suspicion for further investigation in the matter,” SSP informed.
Considering Sharma’s ties to criminals from other states, there might be a possibility of the assailants physically involved in the firing might not be from Jharkhand, he further added. There is every chance that Sharma might have been out of state himself to avoid suspicion.
Meanwhile, the injured PWD engineer Samrendra Prasad was taken to Medanta Hospital in Gurgaon for better medical attention.
On the other hand, two culprits behind the murder of 12-year-old Sunita Kumari and stealing from her house in Chatakpur under Ratu police station were arrested. When apprehended, Akash Kumar, friend of Sunita’s brother Bablu Kumar, confessed his crimes and informed about the whereabouts of his accomplice Sunil Mahli.
On information from them, `11,000 in cash, two pairs of silver anklets, a silver chain and three silver coins they stole from Sunita’s house were recovered by police force.
“Initially, there were speculations that Sunita was murdered after being raped, but there has been nothing confirming this fact in the post-mortem and pathological reports,” stated SSP.