3 cops booked 25 years after sten gun, 20 bullets go missing

Ludhiana: The Ludhiana rural police has booked three police personnel 25 years after a sten gun and 20 bullets went missing from Sadar Raikot police station in 1997. Police officials said that departmental action was taken against them and their service tenure was reduced by one year. While cases have been registered against the three accused, they are yet to be arrested.
On Thursday, Ludhiana police booked three police personnel, including retired head constables Jagroop Singh and Rajinder Pal Singh as well as SPO Ajit Singh, who is now a head constable, under Section 409 of the IPC (Criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent) after it was found that they allegedly lost the sten gun and twenty bullets allotted to them.
SSP Ludhiana Rural Harjeet Singh said that the accused will be arrested. He added that the police can also give them bail and they can join the investigation. A senior police official said that since there is not much degradation in the metal used in the weapon with time, they would try to locate it. He added that a departmental inquiry was ordered after the matter came to light.
Police officials said that before 2007, Ludhiana rural police claimed that loss of the sten gun and bullets was due to carelessness on the part of the accused and not due to any other intent. Police ordered the accused to deposit double the amount of the price of the weapon and ammunition along with 25% of the price of the weapon as miscellaneous charges as punishment. However, they said that the DGP office cancelled the orders and ordered the Ludhiana rural police to register a case against the accused. Sources said that the district attorney had asked the police to lodge a case against the accused on April 14, 2009 but the police did not do so. After the DGP office asked about the progress, SSP, Ludhiana Rural, Harjeet Singh ordered registration of a case.
Police said that the matter came to light in 2004 after the department conducted an audit of the weapons.
During the audit, a sten gun and 20 bullets were found to be missing and a probe was launched. It was found that the sten gun along with bullets were allotted to then head constables Jagroop Singh, Rajinder Pal Singh and SPO Ajit Singh, who were deputed in the security of Manjit Singh of Jagraon road in Raikot. Attempts were made to recover the gun and bullets but they could not be found. Under Section 409 of the IPC, whoever, being in any manner entrusted with property, or with any dominion over property in his capacity of a public servant or in the way of his business as a banker, merchant, factor, broker, attorney or agent, commits criminal breach of trust in respect of that property, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall be liable to fine.