Darbhanga, Dec. 10: The sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) of Benipur in the district was caught red-handed accepting bribe by a vigilance team today.
Led by superintendent of police (SP), vigilance, Pravez Akhtar, the team nabbed SDPO Banke Razak, while he was taking a bribe of Rs 30,000 from Ravindra Kumar Singh, alias Sintu Singh, in connection with a case lodged at Baheri police station in March this year.
Razak had demanded the bribe from Ravindra for taking action against persons whose names appeared in the FIR. However, Ravindra tipped off the vigilance, which in turn, laid a trap for Razak.
“Razak was the supervising police officer of the case and action could be taken against the named accused only after the SDPO submitted his report. He was caught red-handed taking a bribe of Rs 30,000 from the complainant of the case, Ravindra Kumar Singh,” SP, vigilance, Patna, Pravez Akhtar, told The Telegraph.
He added that following the arrest, he was directly taking Razak from his Benipur office to the state capital and would book him in a bribery case.
Ravindra had lodged a complaint case against six persons, including former Benipur BDOs Bipin Kumar Rai and Braj Bhushan, panchayat secretary Ravindra Singh, a ward councillor Ramadhar Mandal, his cousin Prem Nath Singh and his wife, Devta Singh, in Darbhanga district court in March this year.
However, Ravindra charged the BDOs, panchayat secretary and ward councillor with committing irregularities in road construction, tube bell pipe exchange (plastic pipe in stead of iron pipe) against.
But he alleged that Devta Singh had taken her job of a panchayat teacher by furnishing a fake certificate.
Sources revealed that then Darbhanga senior superintendent of police (SSP) Vikas Vaibhav had supervised a case of murder of Ajit Thakur, a quack of Rampur Uday village under Alinagar block in the district.
Razak was found to have already visited Ajit and that he had overlooked basic evidence during his work, leading to public resentment. The SSP ordered the arrest of the main accused in the case, Fekan Mukhiya, on November 12 this year.
