Davinder Singh Garcha’s wife being taken from her residence for a search of her bank lockers
in Jalandhar. — A Tribune photograph |
Chandigarh/Jalandhar/Ropar, February 26
Three months after the Punjab and Haryana High Court observed the Moga sex scam apparently was “nothing less than the Jammu sex scandal”, the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) today arrested then Moga’s senior superintendent of police Davinder Singh Garcha, along with then superintendent of police (headquarters) Paramdeep Singh Sandhu, for alleged involvement in the scam.
With this, the Punjab government’s effort to take the case from the CBI’s hands has received a setback. The state had moved an application for recalling, amending or modifying the orders directing the CBI probe. A special leave petition was also filed by it before the Supreme Court.
Sources in the CBI said the two were arrested from their residences in Chandigarh. While Garcha was arrested from his house in Sector 22 here Sandhu was picked up from his Sector 9 residence.
Sources said simultaneous raids were made at the residences of the two in Jalandhar, Ropar and Chandigarh. Initially, Garcha was picked up for questioning, but later placed under arrest by the investigating officers.
An Olympian-cum-former captain of Indian hockey team, Garcha’s name had initially cropped up in the sex scam proceedings before the high court’s Division Bench of Justice Mehtab Singh Gill and Justice Harbans Lal. Moga resident Surjit Singh, in an affidavit filed before the high court, had alleged sub inspector Raman Kumar, while asking for money, had told part of it was to be passed on to Garcha.
Probing the case on the high
court directions, the CBI, subsequently, gathered “evidence” against the two in form of statements of witnesses. The “witnesses”, including two Moga-based advocates, had categorically stated money was demanded and passed on directly or indirectly to the girls and senior police functionaries, including Garcha, for letting the accused off the hook. Among those allegedly implicated, and later let off, were goldsmiths and even an international kabaddi player.
The modus operandi reportedly emerging from the investigations was senior police functionaries, after booking innocents, accepted money, part of which was paid to the girls. Later, one of the girls would not identify the accused. Or, the police after completion of legal formalities would give the accused clean chit. The demand ranged from anywhere between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 6 lakh, depending upon the status of the accused.
When the CBI was carrying out arrests in Chandigarh, its four-member team was conducting simultaneous raid at Garcha’s house in old Jawahar Nagar, near SD college, in Jalandhar.
The team started the raid at his house around 11 am. Some documents were reportedly seized from there in six-hour raid. Subsequently, the team asked Garcha’s wife Harwinder Kaur to accompany the team to Bank of Baroda’s Railway road branch for searching the lockers. The search continued for over two hours.
While the CBI sleuths remained tightlipped on the seizure and the motive behind the raid, the sources said operation was carried out to know whether he had amassed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. A Punjab police team led by DSP RS Sidhu accompanied the CBI team during the raid.
At Ropar, the CBI team headed by inspector Ravinder Kush raided the office and house of Sandhu at 12 noon. The team initially approached Ropar SSP PK Sinha with warrants to search the office of the accused SP. They later searched the office of the SP located in Ropar mini-secretariat. Later, the team accompanied by the local DSP went to the residence of the SP in Ropar Police Lines. A search was also conducted there also. The sources insisted the CBI could not find anything incriminating from the house or office of the SP.-With inputs from Dharmendra Joshi, Lalit Mohan and Ramanjit Singh Sidhu.
