Cop in soup for demanding bribe to return stolen gold ornaments

COIMBATORE: District superintendent of police R Pandiarajan on Thursday said he would order a detailed probe against a cop attached to

Chettipalayam

police station for allegedly seeking Rs 50,000 from a burglary victim to return gold ornaments recovered from burglars. “Departmental action will be taken against him if charges were found to be true after the inquiry.”


According to an official source, the house of K Duraisamy, 52, of Balaji Nagar at Malumichampatti on the outskirts of the city, was burgled of gold ornaments weighing 35 sovereigns in June. “But the Chettipalayam police registered a first information report (FIR) stating only 19 sovereigns of gold ornaments were stolen. They convinced Duraisamy, a supervisor with a spinning mill, that they would face problems from senior officials if they were to mention in the FIR that 35 sovereigns of gold were stolen and made him sign the FIR.”

On Tuesday, the Chettipalayam police arrested two men identified as S Manikandan of

Thendral

Nagar at

Ondipudur

and M Saravanan of Annai Sathya Nagar and recovered gold ornaments weighing 28 sovereigns that they had stolen.

On Thursday, a cop approached Duraisamy and told him that only 15 sovereigns of gold have been recovered from the accused and he would take steps to return the ornaments. He also told Duraisamy that teams from two police stations were working together to arrest the accused and demanded Rs 50,000 to return him 19 sovereigns gold as mentioned in the FIR through court.

Pandiarajan told TOI that the victim wouldn’t have to pay any amount to get back his gold ornaments.