LUCKNOW: A special court of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh on Friday awarded a 10-year jail term along with a fine of Rs 10,000 each to 24 police personnel, including two personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and 22 cops, in a case of an arms’ supply to Maoists in Chhattisgarh in 2010.
As many as 76 CRPF personnel died and eight Maoists were killed in Dantewada in Chhattisgarh in April 2010. The court of Special Judge (EC Act) Vijay Kumar had declared the accused guilty on Thursday. Of the 22 personnel, most belonged to the UP Police and Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC). The main accused died during the trial that lasted over a decade.
Rampur additional district government counsel (criminal) (ADC) Pratap Singh Maurya said, “All the convicts were taken into custody on Thursday after the court found them guilty.” Maurya said the incident happened in 2010 when the superintendent of UP Special Task Force (STF), posted in Lucknow, received inputs about the supply of cartridges, arms and ammunition to Maoists and terrorists of Chhattisgarh from Rampur through a person who was based in Allahabad (now Prayagraj).
On April 29, 2010, the STF arrested three persons – Yashonandan, a retired sub-inspector of PAC, Vinod Paswan and Vinesh Kumar from Rampur. Vinod and Vinesh were posted as havildars with CRPF’s Rampur centre. The STF had recovered a cache of cartridges along with Insas rifles and cash.
In all, ammunition in 12 sacks was found. After the FIR, all three were sent to judicial custody. On another tip-off given by Yashonandan, another person named Nathiram Saini was arrested from Moradabad, said Maurya. The UP STF ended up arresting and booking 23 cops. According to Maurya, Yashonandan had provided a diary with the names of the accused and details of their respective bank accounts.
Maurya said most of the 23 personnel arrested later were posted with armouries in various districts across UP. “They were accused of supplying ammunition to Maoists in an attack on a CRPF contingent in Dantewada in Chhattisgarh in April 2010,” said Maurya. All accused were found guilty by the Rampur court under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 413 (habitually dealing in stolen property), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code (IPC). As per the ADC, Yashonandan was made the main accused in the chargesheet following the probe into the case.
