NEHRU NAGAR GRAFT

36 cops had taken bribes: ACB report

S Ahmed Ali TNN

August 9,2013
Mumbai: The anti-corruption bureau (ACB), probing the graft case against 36 constables from Nehru Nagar police station in Kurla, has concluded that prima facie they had demanded and accepted money to allow illegal constructions.
    The ACB will file the initial report before the high court on Thursday. The complainant,
Mohammed Khan (50), had filed a plea in the HC seeking direction to set up a special investigation team to probe the matter. “The final report will be filed after we get the CCTV footage reports from the forensics lab,” said an officer.
    In April, the 36 constables were suspended after Khan caught them on camera accepting bribes. The ACB, which was directed to probe the matter, collected 21 CDs of the CCTV footages, voice samples and recorded statements of the 36 policemen and 24 independent witnesses.
    In March, Khan was demolishing the mezzanine floor to convert his friend’s groundplus-one barrack at Kurla Refugee Camp into a flat, when a few cops allegedly demanded money and threatened to frame him in a case for carrying out illegal extension. After paying Rs 45,000 over 10 days to cops, Khan set up a CCTV camera in the barrack. Over the next 10 days, the camera caught the cops allegedly accepting bribe. Khan submitted the footage to the ACB, but the officials refused to accept it. He then went to the police commisioner. BMC report awaited S ources said initially Mohammed Khan had also complained of harassment and extortion by civic officials, but when the BMC failed to take any action, he conducted the sting operation. Municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte had ordered a probe to verify Khan’s claim that civic officials had demanded bribe; the report is awaited.