Image for illustration. (Reuters)
M Prabhushankar, posted within the Central Crime Branch (CCB), had allegedly taken the bribe from the sellers of cigarettes in the course of the lockdown interval.
- News18
- Last Updated: May 12, 2020, 12:45 PM IST
Bengaluru: Cigarette “burns” have left a scar on the face of Bengaluru City Police within the time of Coronavirus. The Central Crime Branch (CCB) is within the soup after a number of mid-level law enforcement officials had been caught for taking an enormous bribe for permitting the unlawful sale of cigarettes in the course of the first 50 days of lockdown.
In an ironic twist of story, the state authorities has suspended Prabhushankar, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), for fraud and misappropriation, who himself is a part of the Fraud and Misappropriation Wing of the Central Crime Branch. Two different inspectors have additionally been suspended.
Prabhushankar is accused of working an extortion racket with a few of his subordinates. According to high police sources, they used to blackmail cigarette sellers and stockists who had been illegally promoting the nicotine butt within the black marketplace for an exorbitant value.
According to insiders, they focused large cigarette merchants and sellers who had been into black marketeering. They would raid them, confiscate cigarette bundles price lakhs and generally even crores, threaten them with dire penalties and extort enormous cash to hush up the deeds.
They believed to have amassed over Rs.1.75 crore from this stuff. So far over Rs 50 lakh has been recovered from them and the town police are conducting investigation to go deeper into the racket.
In one such incident, that they had confiscated cigarettes price over Rs.25 lakh from vendor and demanded Rs 20 lakh to avoid wasting him. When he pleaded helplessness to rearrange such a giant cash, the rogue cops offered the identical cigarette in black marketplace for Rs 15 lakh and pocketed all the proceeds.
This incident has embarrassed the town police and the upper ups are working for the duvet. State Home Minister Basavaraja S Bommai has ordered an intensive probe into the entire incident.
A police officer on the situation of anonymity revealed that this was only a tip of the iceberg as many rogue cops need the lockdown to proceed like this for a very long time in order that they’ll generate profits by blackmailing the businessmen.
“What has come out in the public is nothing. It runs deeper. From liquor to cigarettes, they are into everything,” the police official mentioned.
During the preliminary days of lockdown, cigarettes had been offered for as a lot as Rs 1,000 a pack, that’s, only one cigarette costing Rs 100. A couple of days in the past, a bootlegging of liquor incident linked to the police had hit headlines, elevating severe questions over the functioning of metropolis police.
The Director General of Police (DGP) of Karnataka, Praveen Sood, has promised strict motion towards the corrupt cops.
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