SHO in trouble for stealing old notes in Delhi

New Delhi: The Delhi police has taken five cops, including an SHO, off duty and sent them to the police lines for allegedly stealing money recovered during raids post demonitisation. Station house officer Naresh Kumar was posted at Jahangirpuri.

The action was taken after the police registered FIR against Mr Kumar on a complaint filed by a woman. She complained to the police that Mr Kumar  had taken money amounting to Rs 25 lakh from a garbage collector and never reported it to the higher authorities. The woman, in her complaint, had alleged that, Titu, a garbage collector, had found Rs 25 lakh in cash while he was searching through trash. Titu went to the Jahangirpuri SHO and handed him the money. However, the SHO took the money from him and never reported the case in a bid to pocket the entire amount after conducting a raid at Titu’s home.

When investigating the case, the police tried to get in touch with Titu, who was found to be a native of West Bengal. “We traced him to a location in West Bengal. During questioning, he told us that he had found the money in Pitampura on November 12. He told his friends about it and the complainant, who runs a shop in the locality, overheard them and complained to the SHO,” said a senior police official.

The SHO allegedly paid Rs 1.3 lakh to Titu and asked him to leave the city. “He left for West Bengal on Friday. We detained him and questioned him. Now we will be taking action against four of his juniors for their involvement,” the official added. In another incident, a Delhi police constable has been suspended for allegedly hitting a man with a baton and engaging in a scuffle with others, including a woman, while trying to control the crowd outside a bank on Tuesday.

The constable, posted at Bhajanpura police station, was suspended after he allegedly lost his temper outside a bank in Northeast Delhi’s Yamuna Vihar area following a scuffle with a woman. Senior police officers said that the constable was suspended and an inquiry has been set up. Meanwhile, people in the national capital rushed to Metro and railway booking counters, petrol pumps, Mother Dairy outlets and other cooperative stores as the exemption on use of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes at public utilities was to come to an end on Thursday.

The government, however, on Thursday extended till December 15 the facility of using old Rs 500 notes in public utilities and included more services like mobile recharge but stopped the over-the-counter exchange of defunct currencies.