PATNA: Five policemen in Bihar were placed under suspension for negligence during an encounter with a gang of liquor smugglers in Samastipur district last week in which a police havildar was killed and the police station head was injured.
Samastipur SP Deepak Ranjan said an ongoing probe into the confrontation between the police team and the armed liquor smugglers found the five policemen negligent during the entire operation. The station house officer (SHO) of Sarairanjan police station, Manoj Kumar Singh, who had received injuries in his hand, was placed under suspension a day after the encounter took place on November 27 night.
Bihar Military Police (BMP) havildar Anil Kumar was killed after a bullet fired by the smugglers hit him in his chest during the encounter on an empty road near Indvara village.
Senior officials did not specify the nature of the negligence that led to the suspensions, but sources said the policemen who took part in the encounter were not “sufficiently prepared” for such incident and that they did not follow basic procedures.
“The SHO was placed under suspension by the DIG for several lapses. He had conducted the raid at a place outside his jurisdiction without informing that police station and also not informing the SP about it. Besides, he displayed poor leadership qualities during the encounter that claimed a havildar’s life,” said a police official.
The havildar’s death had raised questions about the state police’s preparedness to tackle liquor smugglers. ADG (headquarters) Sunil Kumar Singhal had said a preliminary probe into the incident had brought to the fore “errors by the police team in handling the situation”.
The smugglers were travelling in a car and, when stopped by the policemen, fired at them from inside the car and managed to run away taking advantage of the darkness. As many as 262 bottles of foreign liquor were seized from the car they left behind.