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Eleven Punjab policemen including a deputy superintendent of police have been booked for allegedly abducting a 21-year-old Kota man in a drug case, the Rajasthan police said on Tuesday.
The man, a local from Kota city, was booked by the Hoshiarpur police under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act with alleged recovery of 10 kg of opium from his possession, they said.
The policemen were booked at Kota's Kunhari police station on a high court order, issued after it heard the petition of Nirmal Singh, father of the abducted man.
Nirmal Singh is a resident of Sanwalpura in Talera area of Bundi district.
The policemen booked were Lakhveer Singh, in-charge Sadar police station, Gurunam Singh, Mahesh Shankar, Buta Singh, Sukhdev Singh, Samit Kumar, Gurupreet Singh, Trilok Singh, Raman Kumar, Jaspreet Singh -- all from Hoshiarpur police.
The other three policemen booked were Aatri, Gurulabh Singh, and Lal Singh.
They were booked under Sections 365 (kidnapping), 343 (wrongful confinement), 394 (causing hurt during robbery), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) among others of the Indian Penal Code, and also the Section 59 of the NDPS Act.
The policemen were accused of abducting Harnoor Singh from Kota and showed him as arrested in Hoshiarpur with recovery of 10 kg of opium from his car bearing a Rajasthan number plate.
Nirmal Singh, father of Harnoor Singh who is currently lodged in Gurdaspur jail, moved the Rajasthan high court against the Punjab police personnel.
In his petition, Singh said his son, a college student, had left from home on March 7 to go to a wedding but never returned. The next day he filed a missing persons report, he said.
According to the petition, on March 8 he received a call from his son who told him that he had been abducted by the Hoshiarpur police from outside a hotel in Kunhari area and that they were demanding a ransom for his release.
Nirmal Singh took to analysing the CCTV footage of the concerned hotel where the wedding was taking place and traced his son's mobile location, which was found active in Hoshiarpur on March 9.
Singh said that on March 10, he received a call from Hoshiarpur Sadar police station in-charge Lakhveer Singh, who informed that his son had been arrested with 10 kg opium on him.
Nirmal Singh also managed to collect CCTV footages from toll plazas between Kota and Hoshiarpur, which according to the petition, showed the policemen having food with his son at roadside hotels, and also displaying their police cards at toll plazas, the police said.
The footage was produced before the court as evidence.
"On the court's order, the police lodged a case against 14 policemen, including 11 from Hoshiarpur in Punjab, and investigation into the matter is on," said Kalu Verma, the circle officer, who is also the officer investigating the case.