A retired IPS officer who has acted as a whistleblower flagging corruption under successive governments in Uttar Pradesh and also raised issues concerning public welfare and police reforms has been arrested from a Delhi-bound train in the dead of the night.

Amitabh Thakur was picked up from a Lucknow-Delhi train in Shahjahanpur around 1.20am on Wednesday in connection with a plot of land he allegedly sold illegally in Deoria district two decades ago.

DCP (Lucknow West) Vishwajeet Srivastava said a complaint was filed by Sanjay Sharma, a social worker in Lucknow's Rajajipuram, on September 12. The complaint alleged that false names, addresses and forged documents, including application forms, affidavits, treasury challans and transfer deeds, had been used to obtain the land.

Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered under multiple sections of the penal code and a special investigation team constituted, Srivastava said.

"There was an allegation that Amitabh Thakur, during his tenure as superintendent of police of Deoria district, and his wife (RTI activist Nutan Thakur) illegally acquired a piece of land and sold it for monetary gain. The SIT found the allegation to be true. He was arrested and taken to Deoria to be produced before a court there,” Srivastava said.

Nutan alleged that her husband had been arrested, and she too apprehended similar action, as they often took up issues related to crimes committed under the patronage of the state government.

“He was in Deoria more than two decades ago. The police have cooked up a case against him with ulterior motives. He takes up every possible issue of corruption and crime in which someone or the other from the government is involved. He had been arrested earlier also because of his endeavour to cleanse the system,” Nutan told reporters.

Former IPS officer Thakur had submitted a police complaint a few months ago, accusing an advocate in Kanpur of colluding with a senior government official to illegally acquire properties. Thakur had demanded a probe into the sources of earning of the two.

Thakur, 57, who hails from Bihar, is an engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur and joined the Uttar Pradesh IPS cadre in 1992. His first posting was as additional superintendent of police of Gorakhpur in 1994. He was transferred 24 times before being forcibly sent into retirement in 2021 following his arrest in an abetment to suicide case.

Thakur is not known to belong to any political camp. The Akhilesh Yadav government had allegedly created the post of SP, rules and manual, in 2013 to put him in hibernation because he was vocal against what he claimed was corruption and lack of transparency in the police department.

Thakur had also filed several cases of corruption in government offices before the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court. No case has reached a conclusion yet.

The police had arrested him in 2021 on the charge of abetting the suicide of a woman and her friend. He was granted bail after six months.

“It happens that those who try to expose powerful people get in trouble. We are prepared for such hazards," Nutan said.