Cuttack, Feb. 21: Three cops of Cantonment police station were suspended on charges of dereliction of duty.

Assistant sub-inspectors Bijay Behera and Pradipta Mohanty and sub-inspector Nirakar Sethi had allegedly not taken action following a complaint of abduction at gunpoint. Instead, they had asked the complainant to approach the neighbouring police station as the offence was committed in their area.

The police said all the three officials had initially not registered the complaint by a youth, who was allegedly abducted at gunpoint from near Cambridge school and attacked at Bidanasi on Wednesday. The victim, identified as Sk Rehan, had named five persons involved in his abduction. But, the three police officials had asked him to approach Bidanasi police.

Sources said that though Rehan had filed a written report on late Wednesday night, the cops did not take action to verify the allegations even though a medical examination of the injured was conducted.

Four unidentified criminals had targeted the hotel of one of the five youths, who were involved in the abduction. The criminals had thrown four crude bombs at the hotel on Thursday evening.

Though no one was hurt in the bomb attack, it is suspected that the incident was the fall out of the ongoing dispute between two criminal groups that had been lingering for past couple of days. “It appears that there is a link between both the kidnapping and subsequent bombing incident and further investigation in connection with the cases is on,” said deputy commissioner of police S. Praveen Kumar.

Kumar said that appropriate action would be taken against those found guilty of misconduct and negligence in duty in connection with both the incidents.