Court puts curbs on Gujarat cop’s arrest

GANDHINAGAR - The Gujarat High Court Monday restrained the state police from arresting an additional director general of police (ADGP) in connection with a 26-year-old suspected staged shootout.

Justice R.H. Shukla ordered the state police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) not to arrest ADGP Kuldip Sharma till a hearing Aug 20.

Sharma, a 1976-batch Indian Police Service officer, is posted as the managing director of the Gujarat Sheep and Wool Development Corporation since November 2009.

The state police recently registered a first information report (FIR) in the 26-year-old staged shootout case in Kutch district and accused Sharma of murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy.

The Rajkot zone of the CID accused the senior IPS officer of involvement in the killing of two and disappearance of three members of a family.

The case was registered after the Director General of Police received a letter in this connection by Jusab Juma Mokha who sought fresh investigation into a complaint filed in 1984, in which Sharma was held responsible for the death of two and disappearance of three members of his family following a police shootout.

Sharma was the then Kutch district superintendent of police in 1984. The family members of the deceased blamed the IPS officer for the shootout deaths.

Accepting the contention of Sharma’s counsel, S.V. Raju, that the top police officer’s name has never figured either in police complaint or in any complaint filed before the court, Justice Shukla granted him the interim relief.

Sharma claimed the state government was “targeting” him by opening an old case and the complaint registered against him should be set aside.

Mokha alleged in his complaint that Sharma killed five members of his family, including his father, elder brother and uncles.

He also alleged that, after the killings, Sharma and others filed false cases against him and other members of his family.