70 cops suspended, sacked in fight against corruption

Chandigarh: The UT police department has shown no leniency towards corrupt policemen or adopting any kind of misconduct, demonstrating their commitment to maintaining the integrity a: nd professionalism of the force.
Between Jan 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024, the UT police department took stringent action against officers involved in corruption or misconduct.The department’s uncompromising stance led to the suspension and dismissal of 70 police personnel, ranging from inspectors to constables.
On July 3, 2024, the UT police booked its own inspector, assistant sub inspector (ASI) and a home guard volunteer for allegedly duping three persons of Mohali of Rs. 18 lakh on the pretext of providing them jobs in Punjab police. All three cops were also suspended by the police department.
As per available figures, the UT police department had suspended 37 cops and dismissed 12 from services in 2023. However, 16 cops have already been suspended and five dismissed from the department this year till now.
Senior officials said these 70 cops were suspended and dismissed from the department after getting complaints of alleged corruption and misconducts by them. Once the department gets any complaints against cops, it conducts internal enquiry against them and then suspends/dismiss them without any further delay.
Recently, the UT police department had taken action against inspector Ranjit Singh, sub inspector KD Singh and two head constables Bahadur Singh and Rajinder Singh. All were posted at the cyber police station in Sector 17 after receiving complaints of misconduct against them. Sources also revealed that the enforcement directorate (ED), Chandigarh, also recommended the police department to lodge FIRs against them for benefitting the accused involved in Chinese loan scam case.
In May this year, the police department sent inspector Satwinder Singh, then SHO of anti-narcotics task force (ANTF), Sector 11, to police lines in Sector 26 and suspended sub inspector Sumer Singh after they failed to submit chargesheet within stipulated time, leading to three drug peddlers getting bail from local court.
The Sector 19 police also registered an FIR against inspector Rakesh Kumar, ASI Surjit Singh and home guard volunteer Jaswinder Singh for allegedly duping three persons of Rs. 18 lakh on the pretext of providing them jobs in the Punjab police. After getting the complaint, the police department investigated the matter for three years and after verifying the facts, the police registered a cheating case against the accused cops.
Last year, the UT police had also booked its sub inspector Naveen Phogat and three constables for extorting Rs. 1.01 crore after abducting a Bathinda-based businessmen in August. In his complaint to police, Sanjay Goyal had said that he had reached Mohali to exchange Rs 1 crore and when he reached the parking lot of Sector 40 market, SI Phogat and one more person reached there, put all the cash in an SUV and took them to a beat box in Sector 40. Later, Phogat allegedly took Goyal to the paddy mandi (grain market) in Sector 39 and allegedly threatened him to leave the city, or they would kill him or implicate him in fake cases of NDPS and Arms Act. Later, accused Naveen Phogat allegedly returned Rs. 75 lakh when Goyal reached Sector 39 police station to file a complaint against Phogat and others. After running for three years, Phogat surrendered before a local court in November 2023. Later, SI Naveen Phogat was dismissed from his services by the police department.
The CBI also nabbed several cops while allegedly accepting bribes from different parts for the city and later all accused cops were suspended by the police department. Besides this, many cops were arrested by the Haryana police in the cases of rape and bootlegging last year and after getting intimation, the UT police department suspended and dismissed them.