'International thief': UP court orders FIR against 13 cops after man’s 3-year jail ordeal; victim says arrested just to show results

BAREILLY: Three years after he was falsely implicated, jailed and publicly branded an "international thief", a 50-year-old man has finally got relief, with a court in Sambhal ordering registration of an FIR against 13 policemen and directing a probe into whether a 2022 robbery case was "fabricated".The order came on Wednesday while hearing the petition of Om Veer Kumar, who had maintained that he was wrongly shown as an accused in the robbery case to project a police "breakthrough". Sukant Kumar, Om Veer's counsel, told TOI, "The court has ordered an FIR against two inspectors, four sub-inspectors and seven other policemen after observing that the 2022 robbery case could be fake."According to police claims, a milk vendor, Durvesh, was robbed of Rs 1 lakh in Sambhal on April 25, 2022, while returning home. They arrested Om Veer and Rishipal, 25, on July 7, 2022, in connection with the matter.However, court records and jail documents showed that Om Veer had already been lodged in Badaun jail from April 11 to May 12 the same year in an Arms Act case, prompting the court to ask how he could have committed the robbery when he was already in jail.Om Veer alleged he was picked up due to an old rivalry with the pradhan, claiming several policemen were "in touch" with him. "Police were under pressure to show results in multiple pending cases and arrested Rishipal and me to claim a breakthrough, later parading us as hardened and even international criminals in press briefings. Nineteen damaged motorcycles were shown as recoveries," he said.While Rishipal got bail much earlier, Om Veer spent nearly three years in jail before getting relief — years that he said, destroyed his family. "Before I was sent to jail, I owned around six-and-a-half bighas of land. Today, I don't own even a single bigha," Om Veer said. "I live in a rented room for Rs 2,500 a month. My two children, whom I dreamt would study and do well, now work at wedding functions, serving tea and snacks to help us survive.""We were arrested just to show results. We were declared hardened criminals," he said.With the court's order now turning the spotlight on the officers involved, serious questions have emerged over alleged misuse of power, prolonged incarceration, and the economic and social ruin of a family caught in the machinery of policing gone wrong.A senior police officer familiar with the case said an FIR is yet to be registered in the matter.