Cops who nabbed Shahu at ‘dawn’ were on day duty: RTI reply

Nagpur: The information obtained by the family of Mohit Shahu under Right to information (RTI) Act has brought a fresh twist to the alleged fake case of narcotics. The family has managed to procure a crucial information that four cops, who were among the ones who had nabbed Mohit and his accomplice Amir Malik for possession of narcotics, were supposed to be not on duty at the time when they had made the arrests as per the FIR. Mohit and Malik were questionably booked in the case in February this year. The next hearing in the case is scheduled at the Nagpur bench of High court on August 16. Pachpaoli police had registered the FIR against Mohit and Malik stating that the former was arrested from a place near Vaishali Nagar at 3.30am on February 26 this year. From the RTI reply, Mohit’s family has found that four cops, whose names have been associated with the arrests at 3.30am on February 26, were on ‘day duty’. The day duty at police stations generally starts at 10am.One of the cops whose car was used to bring Mohit from Kanji House Chowk was on leave. As per the RTI reply, the cop had proceeded on leave on February 16 but a CCTV footage had captured him while nabbing Mohit. The family had, in an earlier RTI query, had managed to get footages of CCTV installed as a part of the Smart City project. In the footages, furnished by Nagpur Smart and Sustainable Development Corporation Limited, the cop could be seen nabbing Mohit at Kanji house chowk at 7.06pm on February 25. The footage had recorded policemen thrashing Mohit. It also revealed that cops had reached the place in a private car belonging to the cop who was supposed to be on leave as per RTI reply. The cops were also seen placing something mysteriously in the two-wheeler of Mohit while beating him on the road. In the meantime, senior counsel RP Joshi, along with his junior associates advocates Sameer Sonwane and Amit Thakur, has offered to help city police to see the crucial portions of the CCTV footages.