Thaindian News

Jaipur, May 17 (IANS) A court Tuesday issued an arrest warrant against Rajasthan Police Additional Director General of Police A.K. Jain for the killing of a criminal, Dara Singh, in an allegedly staged gunfight on the outskirts of Jaipur October 2006.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) approached the special CBI court here after the agency failed to trace the Indian Police Service (IPS) officer over the past three days. An arrest warrant was also issued against Rajasthan Police Service officer Arsad Ali.

Another IPS officer, A. Ponnuchami, was arrested by the CBI Sunday and is currently in police custody.

Jain, Ponnuchami and 12 other police officers are accused in the case, which is being monitored by the Supreme Court.

“We have been trying to trace Jain and Arsad Ali for the past three days, but they seem to have gone underground. Notice for being present questioning had been issued against them earlier,” a CBI officer told IANS.

The CBI had called Ponnuchami and Jain to its Jaipur office for questioning Sunday. While Ponnuchami turned up and was arrested, Jain did not come. The CBI conducted searches Sunday evening, but Jain could not be found.

CBI teams were rushed to Jain’s Gandhi Nagar residence and Ali’s Jhotwara residence in their search, but they remained untraceable.

The CBI has already arrested four other policemen - Inspectors Nisar Khan and Naresh Sharma, Sub-Inspector Satyanarayan Godara and Assistant Sub-Inspector Surendra Singh in the case.

A court had issued warrants against seven other policemen - Rajesh Choudhary, Subash Godara, Zulfikar, Arvind, Badri Prasad, Jagraj and Sardar Singh.

According to police sources, the CBI is trying to prove that Singh’s killing was a fallout of rivalry between two gangs of liquor mafia, one of which had the patronage of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader.

Police officers said that the BJP leader was also under purview of the agency’s probe.

Dara Singh was gunned down by a team of state police’s Special Operations Group Oct 23, 2006.

His widow registered a case at Mansarovar police station in Jaipur against four police officers, including Jain and Ponnuchami, alleging that the shootout was staged.

The Supreme Court in the first week of January slammed the CBI for slow pace of investigation and directed it to submit a status report in the case.