The Bihar government’s effort to upgrade the economic offences unit (EOU) of the state police on a par with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has started showing results.
The professional training imparted to 80 personnel of the EOU, including two superintendents of police and seven deputy superintendents of police, at the CBI training centre in Ghaziabad last year helped the unit big time in bringing corrupt officers to book.
The unit, headed by an inspector-general-rank officer, functions under the direct control of director-general of police Abhayanand. It has so far registered 15 cases related to economic crimes against public servants, including an IPS officer Alok Kumar.
A raid conducted on the office and the residential premises of Mithilesh Kumar, an engineer with the rural engineering organisation, led to the recovery of Rs 14 lakh, about 250g of gold ornaments and documents of investments worth over Rs 20 lakh in insurance policies and shares. Another operation against an engineer posted with the public health and engineering department in Samastipur, Nageshwar Sharma, led to seizure of Rs 2.87 lakh and seven luxury cars valued at Rs 3.5 crore.
The fortnight-long specialised training in Ghaziabad helped the EOU personnel big time in all these cases.
A senior official of the anti-corruption unit said the training was aimed at improving the quality of investigation. “Now the focus is on the use of scientific tools in probes to substantiate the charges against the accused,” he added.
The EOU, however, is facing shortage of manpower. “The workload has increased manifold since its inception in 2011. There is an acute shortfall of personnel in different ranks as compared to sanctioned posts,” the officer said.
According to sources, the EOU has two SPs against the sanctioned strength of three. The post of deputy inspector-general is also vacant.
There are only seven deputy superintendents of police against the sanctioned posts of 12. Of the 37 posts of inspectors, as many as 10 are vacant.
There are vacancies in the sub-inspector rank also.
