Vigilance check for agents at RLA

Chandigarh, January 24
The vigilance cell of the UT police today conducted a check at the Registering and Licensing Authority (RLA) to find out if unscrupulous agents luring people into preparing driving licences and registration certificates were active.

Sleuths conducted a check as a preventive measure following the busting of a fake licence scam in October past year. Inspector Dulip Rattan said they randomly checked some persons who came for licences to see if agents were involved.

Past year, the cell had arrested six persons in the fake driving licence scam. The accused used to provide licences by forging the signature of DSP (Traffic) Vijay Kumar.

The police had recovered 28 files based on fake papers prepared by the accused from the office of the RLA at Sector 17. Investigation revealed that the accused had documented more than 200 driving licences by using fake stamps and signatures.

The scrutiny of the files recovered had revealed that the beneficiaries had not appeared for driving test at the Chandigarh Traffic Park in Sector 23. Their files were found to be having valid serial numbers.

Negligent cops punished

Increments forfeited for varying periods of time

Chandigarh, January 24
Three police officials, found guilty of mishandling the Khushpreet kidnapping-for-ransom case, have been awarded major punishment for their negligence.

The three, including inspector Udeypal Singh, former SHO of the Sector 34 police station, sub-inspector Narinder Patial, the then in charge of the Burail police post, and the then investigating officer sub-inspector Balraj Singh, have been punished with forfeiture of increments.

Inspector General of Police PK Srivastava issued the orders of their punishments recently.

While inspector Udey Pal Singh has been awarded punishment of forfeiture of increments for four years, both sub-inspector Narinder Patial and sub-inspector Balraj Singh have been punished with forfeiture of increments for two years.

Five-year-old Khushpreet was kidnapped for ransom from Burail village in December 2010. A police trap to arrest the kidnappers failed and the body of the child was recovered from a pit in Mohali on January 5, 2011.

This is for the first time that senior police officials have acted against the negligent cops ever since an earlier departmental inquiry conducted by DSP Kulwant Singh Pannu indicted the three policemen for negligence while handling the case. The inquiry report was submitted on June 22 last year. Earlier, senior police officials had also issued them a reduction in rank notice asking them to reply why their current ranks should not be reduced.

All three officials were earlier suspended following a magisterial probe in January last year and were reinstated in May. On October 14 last year, the police complaint authority (PCA), too, criticised the police for not taking any action against the three officials despite them being indicted in both a magisterial and a departmental probe.

The three were found guilty of taking the ransom calls lightly in the beginning, which had resulted in a delayed police action. Both inquiry reports had indicted inspector Udey Pal Singh, inspector Narinder Singh Patial and sub-inspector Balraj Singh and had pointed to the culpabilities of the police officials for mishandling the kidnapping-for-ransom case.