New move: A police station in Jamshedpur

Jamshedpur, Nov. 30: Harish Singh’s dubious act has spelt doom for police informers in East Singhbhum.

Police officers in the district have been asked to stop taking help from informers and start building rapport with common people in localities to gather information.

Harish was a criminal who turned into a police informer and used to have a good relation with the officer in charge of Telco police station, Pradip Chowdhury. But after Harish falsely implicated two youths in an Arms Act case, the district administration took the decision to stop taking help of such informers.

Harish took the advantage of being in the good books of Telco police and planted a pistol in an autorickshaw. He subsequently went and passed on the information to Chowdhury and named two youths of carrying arms.

The mystery behind the conspiracy came to the fore after relatives of the two youths — who had been arrested with false charges of possessing firearms — took to the streets and protested against the action. This forced senior police officers to probe the matter. Harish was then arrested after it was established that he had placed the arms and was wanted in many cases in Sakchi and Sitaramdera police stations.

After the incident, police officers have been asked to develop their own information network to get leads and arrest criminals to end the system, which may end the system informers.

East Singhbhum superintendent of police Naveen Kumar Singh asked all the officers posted in various police stations across the city not to take the help of regular police informers.

“Informers are kept to gather information about a criminal but over the years it has been seen that such informers had vested interest while serving as one. They misguide the police and also use their service to cover up for their crimes committed at other areas under different police stations,” Singh said.

He claimed that those who serve as informers do not reform themselves and are involved in many criminal activities. He said the work of passing on information about criminals could be known to those who themselves are involved in criminal activities.

“I have asked my sub-ordinates that there was no substitute to hard work in cracking a case. Develop contact with common people for information and do not depend on informers, then the investigation can be made scientific,” Singh said.

Criminal Dudhai Yadav, who was killed in a police encounter two years ago, also used to work as an informer for some police officers in the city.

Such informers are generally paid a huge amount for their services and their grievances are also given special attention.