Dawood aide's case divides state police

AHMEDABAD: As if the beating it got during the post-Godhra riots was not enough, now it has taken an underworld gangster to expose the intense infighting in the Gujarat police. A month after Dawood aide Umarmiyan Bukhari alias Mammumiyan's disclosures in the controversial RDX-landing case of 1993, officers from in-charge DGP AK Bhargava to deputy superintendents of police are a divided lot on the issue now.Tapes claiming to have transcripts of conversations between at least three police officers and gangsters, each threatening to expose the other, are already in circulation. One generation of the khaki force is clawing at another comparatively 'enthused' bunch, which disagreed with their seniors and refused to keep quiet. The infighting, incidentally, goes back a long way. In 1995, Addl DGP V Kannu Pillai was arrested on charges of rape, an alleged attempted jailbreak, conspiracy, corruption and violation of Official Secrets Act during an inquiry by the Anti-Terrorist Squad then headed by DIG Kuldeep Sharma and the Anti-Corruption Bureau. Subsequently, a CBI inquiry exonerated Pillai and he was discharged. Ironically, now Sharma is Addl DGP, CID (Crime and Railways), and superintendent of police (SP) Rajkumar Pandian has accused him of having spoken to Mammumiyan on phone in 1995. Take the case of SP Neerja Rao, who was specially appointed to investigate the riot cases in the Panchmahals. She was unceremoniously stripped of this charge after sub-inspector RJ Patil was arrested in a Kalol rioting case. This was after some senior officers protested before AK Bhargava that "her investigations were demoralising the force". The developments convince that only the police can be its worst enemy. The divide, say officers, surfaced after the Godhra train burning on February 27, 2002 when the political masters decided what policing would be all about. The split was between those who toed the government's line and those who didn't. But, it reached a flashpoint recently when Bhargava issued an eight-page rejoinder in defence of Sharma. It revealed that the police chief had taken sides. Without naming anyone, the note sought to malign SP (Intelligence) Rajkumar Pandian, who, in confidence, had written to Bhargava suggesting Sharma be distanced from the probe against Mammumiyan. "There is nothing wrong in a police officer talking to a gangster, because only they can be informers about their operations," says Bhargava. But there are others who oppose this argument."Mammumiyan was the prime accused in the case and could not be made an informer," says a DIG. The RDX landing case had led to bad blood in the police earlier also when a probe by Addl DGP PC Pande indicted former SPs of Porbandar — Satish Verma and Atul Karwal — who were later exonerated.