Twelve police personnel have been booked at Maharajpur police station in Kanpur under serious criminal charges following a Crime Branch-CID investigation that found an alleged 1991 police encounter and robbery case to be fabricated. The case originates from a long-standing complaint filed by a local resident who alleged that his brother and eleven others were falsely implicated after a refusal to provide a land plot free of cost to the then station house officer. Out of eighteen police personnel originally named in the incident, six have died over the intervening decades, while statutory legal proceedings have now been initiated against the surviving twelve.
Dispute Over Land Led to Fabricated Robbery Plot
The dispute began in 1991 when Dev Prasad Pathak, a resident of Gandhigram in the Chakeri area, lodged a formal complaint with the state government. He alleged that Vidyasagar Tripathi, the then station house officer, framed his younger brother Rakesh Pathak alongside eleven others because Pathak declined to hand over a piece of land without payment. According to the complaint, local police illegally detained the men, assaulted them in custody, and manufactured evidence to present a staged encounter.
At the time, the police recorded that they had acted on an intelligence tip-off on August 22, 1991, concerning an armed gang preparing to rob vehicles along the GT Road near Narval turn. Police reports claimed that the suspects placed babul tree branches across the road after midnight on August 23 to intercept trucks and a DCM commercial vehicle. The police claimed an armed confrontation took place, resulting in the arrest of twelve people and the recovery of firearms and crude bombs. Two criminal cases were registered, and then sub-inspector Ramesh Chandra Bhatole filed a chargesheet before the state government transferred the investigation to the CID.
Witness Testimony and Vehicle Crew Contradict Police Account
The inquiry conducted by then CID inspector RP Singh, which received formal approval from CID headquarters in Lucknow on September 25, 1995, concluded that the encounter never took place. Crucial evidence emerged from the testimonies of DCM driver Umashankar Pasi and cleaner Brijendra Singh, who rejected the police narrative in formal statements recorded before a magistrate under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The two crew members testified that while transporting soap from Kanpur to Varanasi, a police constable and six individuals boarded their vehicle at the Ramadevi intersection. The vehicle was directed straight to Maharajpur police station. They confirmed that no criminals had blocked the road near Narval turn, no shootout occurred in their presence, and that the detained men were assaulted at the station while others were forced to sign blank sheets of paper. Furthermore, witnesses revealed that several accused were taken directly from their residences while asleep, and two licensed firearms belonging to the Pathak family were taken by police and presented as illegal weapons recovered from the encounter site.
Twelve Surviving Personnel Named in Criminal Charges
The state CID established prima facie evidence of unlawful confinement, physical torture, and fabrication of public records. Six of the original accused, including then station house officer Vidyasagar Tripathi, sub-inspectors Durbeen Singh and Ramakant, and constables Rajan Singh, Uday Shankar Pandey, and Mahendra Singh, have passed away during the prolonged inquiry.
The newly registered FIR invokes Sections 194, 195, 182, 211, 218, 220, 323, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code against the remaining twelve personnel. Those named include retired sub-inspectors BD Saraswat, Yogendra Nath Singh, and Ramesh Chandra Bhatole; retired head constable Hriday Narayan Tiwari; retired constables Tej Narayan Tiwari, Baijnath, Chandrabali, Vidyakant Shukla, Ram Asare, and Jageshwar Yadav; and serving constables Brijesh Kumar and Ramesh Kumar Tiwari.
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