New Delhi: Arrested on the charge of accepting bribery, senior NIA officer Ajay Pratap Singh faces the ignominy of being caught on the wrong side of the law in his very first case which he was investigating after joining the anti-terrorism agency on deputation.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Ajay Pratap Singh, who is in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on deputation from the Income Tax department, was heading a probe into an alleged bid to revive the banned CPI (Maoist) that led him to an MLC’s son.
Singh was sent on deputation to the NIA last year and has been posted as DSP in the Patna branch, according to CBI and NIA officers. “The CPI (Maoist) case was his first as an investigating officer of the NIA,” an NIA officer told ThePrint.
Singh and two ‘middlemen’ Himanshu and Rittick Kumar were arrested Thursday for allegedly taking Rs 20 lakh bribe from suspects in the Maoist revival case, according to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The complainant, Rocky Yadav, is son of former Janata Dal (United) MLC Manorama Devi. Singh had threatened to implicate his family members for illegally stocking unlicensed assault weapons if his demand was not met, the complainant alleged.
Sources in the two agencies confirmed that DSP Singh had sought Rs 2.5 crore from the complainant Rocky Yadav, whose house was searched as part of the NIA investigation into the case registered in September last year.
The trio was booked under Sections 308(6) (extortion), and 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and 7,12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act dealing with offences related to public servant being bribed and punishment for abetment of offences . The CBI had raided premises linked to the three accused in Patna, Gaya, and Varanasi.
The complainant also had his share of controversy. In 2017, a Gaya sessions court had handed life imprisonment to Rocky Yadav and three others in a road rage case, in which a Class 12 student was shot dead.
Last year, the Patna High Court overturned the decision giving them the “benefit of doubt” as the prosecution failed to produce clinching evidence.
The case
On 26 September last year, the NIA registered a case under Arms Act and the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act on the basis of a case registered by Bihar Police after arresting alleged Maoist sympathisers Rohit Rai and Pramod Yadav.
A police team had allegedly seized country made pistols and cartridges as well as booklets pertaining to CPI(Maoist) Magadh Zonal Organisational Committee from the duo in Gaya on 7 August last year.
The NIA took over the case from the police and filed an FIR against 20 individuals, including Yadav and Rai. Two charge sheets were submitted over the course of investigation in the next few months.
On 19 September, the NIA raided five locations in Bihar linked to suspects in the case including at the residence of Rocky Yadav, son of former Janata Dal (United) MLC Manorama Devi, in Gaya from where it seized “incriminating documents” and Rs 4.03 crore in cash.
A CBI officer said that DSP Singh summoned Rocky Yadav on 24 September asking him to appear at the NIA’s Patna office two days later where he allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 2.5 crore for not implicating him in a fake case.
Under pressure, Rocky allegedly agreed to pay the initial amount of Rs 25 lakh and it was delivered by his relative the same night to a middleman whose number the DSP had shared with the complainant on a handwritten note.
“It was revealed that said Deputy SP was in contact with accused middlemen who along with another middlemen were present in Aurangabad, Bihar, around 11:30 p.m. on the day of incident (26 September), corroborating the reported delivery of the bribe,” a CBI spokesperson said.
Two days later, Rocky was further summoned by DSP Singh to appear before him Tuesday when he was allegedly told to cough up another tranche of Rs 35 lakh the same day in Patna.
DSP Singh shared another handwritten note with the mobile number of the middleman but the complainant sought two more days to pay the amount and assured delivery in Gaya on Wednesday, the CBI spokesperson added.
Rocky then approached the CBI in Patna with the complaint and this information was shared with the NIA about the allegations of bribery against the investigating officer.
A case was then registered Wednesday following which the CBI put the contact numbers of alleged middlemen on surveillance and laid a trap, nabbing them along with DSP from Patna.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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