Court rejects police remand of Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt
Palanpur (Gujarat), Sep 7: A court here on Thursday rejected the Gujarat Police plea seeking remand of former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and sent him to judicial custody in connection with a 22-year-old case of alleged planting of drugs to arrest a man.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police had picked up Bhatt and then inspector of Palanpur police station I.B. Vyas on Wednesday.
The CID produced them before Additional Judicial Magistrate V.R. Charan here in Banaskantha district, seeking their 14-day custody.
Arguing against the plea for remand, the defence lawyers pointed out that the case was over two decades old and a petition related to it was pending before the Supreme Court.
The magistrate accepted the arguments and rejected the CID's demand, and sent both the accused to judicial custody at the Palanpur sub-jail.
Bhatt was Banaskantha district superintendent of police in 1996 when the alleged incident occurred. According to details, the Banaskantha police arrested Sumersingh Rajpurohit, a lawyer, on charges of possessing around one kilogram of opium.
Police claimed the drug was found in a hotel room rented by Rajpurohit at Palanpur.
But later a probe revealed that Rajpurohit was falsely implicated by the police to pressurise him to vacate a disputed property in Pali, his hometown in Rajasthan.
Following complaints, the Gujarat High Court in June handed over the case to the CID and asked it to complete the investigation within three months.
CID officials told reporters on Wednesday that the former IPS officer and others allegedly hatched the conspiracy to arrest Rajpurohit by planting drugs on him, so as to force him to vacate the disputed property.
Bhatt, who has often criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the 2002 Gujarat riots, was sacked by the Union Home Ministry in August 2015 for "unauthorised absence" from service.
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Gangolli Police arrest couple in house robbery case within seven hours
Gangolli: In an operation, the Gangolli police arrested a couple accused of a house robbery within seven hours of the incident.
The accused, identified as Vinayak (41) and his wife Pramila (30) from Gujjadi, were taken into custody following a coordinated investigation by the police team.
The robbery took place on the morning of January 21 when a bag containing jewelry was stolen from a house near Trasi Beach. Among the stolen items were a 16-gram gold necklace, a 16-gram bangle, and three gold rings weighing 3 grams, with the total value of the jewelry estimated at Rs 2 lakh. The culprits fled the scene on a scooty.
Following the registration of the case at the Gangolli police station, SSI Harish R. and a team comprising officers Shantaram, Raju, Nagaraj, Raghavendra, Sandeep Kurani, Maruti Nayak, and Dinesh swiftly gathered intelligence and tracked down the suspects by 8 p.m. on the same day. The stolen gold ornaments and the vehicle used in the crime have been recovered.
The accused were presented before the court, and further legal proceedings are underway.
