Bargarh: Four policemen of Town police station beat up a scrap trader of Chhattisgarh here and looted Rs 3 lakh from him, the victim said in his complaint lodged with the police Friday.
Acting on the complaint of Sudhir Khatri, the Town police registered a case against four sub-inspector Dhabaleswar Sahoo, SPO Durga Prasad, constable Hemant Das and home guard Prashant and began a probe.
While three of these men are on the run, home guard Prashant has been detained, it was learnt.
Bolangir SP Ashis Kumar Singh who is in charge of Bargarh district took up the matter seriously and promised strong action against the guilty.
According to Khatri’s accounts, two policemen in civil clothes stopped him at a toll gate on the outskirts of Bargarh town April 23 when he was on way to Sambalpur in his car on a business tour. The policemen searched his car and spotted Rs 3.82 lakh in the vehicle.
Though Khatri explained to them that the cash was meant for his business, the cops were not convinced. They made him travel various locations of the town and tortured him physically and mentally. Later he was detained inside an abandoned outpost of the town where the two threatened to implicate him in a ganja smuggling case and beat him up.
Khatri’s repeated claim that he is innocent didn’t have any impact on the policemen. They took away Rs 3 lakh from him leaving only `80,000 in the bag, the trader said.
The two policemen even made Khatri admit that he received all the money which was ‘seized’ by the police and recorded his admission in their mobile phone.
Meanwhile, two other policemen reached the scene and the four took him to the Chhattisgarh border. They left the trader there with a warning that he won’t enter the state again in future.
Aggrieved, the trader narrated the whole incident before top officers of Chhattisgarh police department after returning home. On being advised by them, he met Bargarh SP Ashis Singh and lodged a complaint describing the details. PNN
