7 cops 'covered up' Ghaziabad murder trail

NEW DELHI/GHAZIABAD: It's an incredible story of alleged criminal-cop nexus. Ghaziabad police has claimed that, in true Bollywood style, seven bad cops from Delhi and Haryana provided alibi to a gang that executed the murder of a realtor and his security guard in a daring shootout on November 29 last year. They were shown to be in custody when the murders were executed.
These men sprung an ambush on property dealer Satish Yadav and his guard, Dharmendra, when their car reached the Sadarpur crossing and slowed down.They had taken position near a canal and opened fire from their automatic weapons. A service revolver was also allegedly used.
And according to the Ghaziabad Police sleuths, the assailants quietly sneaked back into police lock-ups only to be produced later that day in court for petty offences for which they had been booked a day earlier.
A Ghaziabad court has now issued arrest warrants against the seven policemen. The court has directed the police to arrest assistant sub-inspector Dinesh, posted in north-east district, constables Govind Sahay and Shiv Kumar, stationed at Pandav Nagar police station in east Delhi, and constables Samarjeet, Naveen Kumar, Naurang Singh and Dayanand, who are all posted in Faridabad, Haryana. According to Ghaziabad Police sources, two more policemen from Delhi Police might also be arrested in the case.
"The arrest warrants are being executed. We will be asking the district police in east and north-east Delhi and the Faridabad superintendent of police to arrest the policemen. If they don't do so, we will arrest them,'' said Ghaziabad SSP Akhil Kumar.
Senior officials in both districts in Delhi denied having received any communication in this regard. However, joint commissioner (New Delhi Range) Dharmendra Kumar said the process might take a couple of days because of the long weekend. "We will go through the warrant and decide our course of action. No one, if found guilty, will be spared. However, it is inappropriate to hazard a guess on a court warrant. We will comment only when we go through the entire order,'' said Kumar.
Satish and Dharmendra were shot dead when they were returning from a wedding in Sadarpur village in an Innova. Another person, Hari Om, who was in the car, was also injured.
Satish's family registered an FIR against local Bahujan Samaj Party leader Rakesh Pahalwan, Ashok Yadav, Shobha Ram, Rukam Kesh, Yogesh, Vishal Ranga and Harsh at the Kavi Nagar police station in Ghaziabad. "As our investigations progressed, we found that the accused had a feud with the victim's family. The family in fact alleged that the same men had killed three other family members and a servant. It was after we arrested them that the accused claimed they were not on the spot as all of them were in police custody. This set us thinking and investigations into the police role began,'' said a UP cop.
Investigations carried out by the special investigation squad after it was handed over the case by the Kavi Nagar police station allegedly revealed that a day before Satish and Dharmendra were murdered, ASI Dinesh of the proclaimed offenders department had arrested two of the seven accused for smuggling liquor. The same day, constables Govind and Shiv had arrested a couple of other accused while Haryana Police constables Samarjeet, Naveen, Naurang and Dayanand had allegedly arrested the remaining in Faridabad.
As the accused were arrested on November 28, they had to be produced in the respective courts the next day, the day of the murders.
It is being alleged that the policemen freed the accused who went and executed the killings. They later returned to their respective police stations.