New Delhi: Roughly a month and a half ago, the Special Cell officers at the Lodhi Colony police station made an unsettling discovery. Some cash had gone missing from the malkhana, a designated storeroom for securely holding the valuables seized during investigations.
At first, the discovery did not spark panic. Officers assumed the materials had merely been misplaced and started a quiet search. However, what shattered their assumptions was finding the malkhana door open early on Saturday morning.
“The malkhana always remains crowded with evidence, so officers kept searching for the missing items, thinking they had misplaced the items somewhere … until Saturday,” said a source in the Special Cell said.
This malkhana at the Special Cell police station, which handles anti-terror cases, usually contains more valuables than a regular police station due to the sensitivity and magnitude of the cases it deals with.
Initially considered a minor oversight, the case suddenly took a more dramatic turn. As suspicions arose, officers scanned the CCTV footage of the malkhana premises from the intervening night of Friday and Saturday and zeroed in on Khurshid, a head constable.
Khurshid, recently transferred from the Special Cell police station to the Northeast district, allegedly had a duplicate key to the malkhana. Before his transfer on 24 May this year, he had served as an assistant to the malkhana in-charge and assistant duty officer during one year-and-a-half of service.
“He had access to the keys since he was earlier posted there. He also got a pair of duplicate keys made,” another source in the Special Cell said.
“We suspect he committed thefts on multiple occasions since he had been handling physical evidence in the malkhana for at least more than one year and a half. Most of the stolen cash and items, we have recovered,” said a third source.
“Since there was no noise, and there was no break-in, he continued to steal, without raising immediate suspicion,” added the second source.
During interrogation, Khurshid allegedly said he was into online gaming and gambling and needed the money. “He was in debt, and since he was also the custodian of all these valuables, he took them out,” the third source said.
An FIR was lodged against Khurshid on 31 May, and on the same day, he was arrested from his home in Northeast Delhi and sent to police remand.
While initially the police had considered the stolen cash to be around Rs 51 lakh, they now suspect at least Rs 70 lakh, along with gold, was stolen from the malkhana.
How it happened
According to officers, Khurshid allegedly stole from the malkhana while the duty officer was sleeping around 2-3 am.
Others refuted this saying that the police station and the malkhana was left unguarded during that time. They said that no one was present in the premises when the incident took place.
It is then that they say that the accused opened the malkhana door with his duplicate key.
“It appears that the staff, unaware that Khurshid had been relieved of his duties just a couple of days earlier, assumed he was still posted and did not stop his entry into the police station … They thought he had work related to the evidence in the malkhana, and it can take a while to finish work after transfers,” said a senior officer, pointing out that there could have been some “lapses in judgment”.
However, other officers refuted this, saying, “The police station was left empty and unguarded—which is why he could steal so easily.” No one was present in the premises when the incident took place, the officers added.
On Saturday morning, when they found the malkhana door open, it raised the alarm bells.
“The staff, alerted by the open door, checked the CCTV footage. Khurshid was arrested within 24 hours,” one of the officers said.
The Special Cell police station has multi-layered security. According to sources, at any given time, six to seven personnel are on duty. The security detail includes personnel from the Nagaland Police, two officers from the Special Cell including one duty officer, and an armed guard, and another officer stationed at the final checkpoint.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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