Raid at Amroha hotel in 2015: 10 cops booked for arresting 13 people in fake sex racket case

According to the CB-CID, the then circle officer (CO) of Dhanaura, Mohan Lal, and nine others claimed of busting a sex racket after raiding a hotel in Amroha in June 2015. They arrested 13 people, including hotel manager Pushpendra and owner Sachin’s maternal uncle and retired IAF Flying Officer Gulbir Singh. All the 13 were booked under Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and sent to jail.

In its investigation, the CB-CID found several anomalies during the raid conducted by Lal.

Additional SP and Sector Officer of CB-CID Bareilly, Pragya Mishra, said they found that even the basic information regarding those arrested was not confirmed by the team during the raid.

“The arrested men and women had submitted affidavits, along with their parents, denying the sex racket allegations made against them. Among those detained was a couple whose marriage was fixed. The police team that raided the hotel arrested people sitting in the hotel’s restaurant. The police team did not even check whether those detained were simply sitting in the hotel’s restaurant or had booked a room. Another person who was just passing by and had stopped at the hotel was also arrested. The uncle of the hotel owner provided us proof that he was at the hotel for daughter’s marriage talks,” said Mishra.

“Even the written documents submitted by the police team had several anomalies. The police team members also hid facts when they were being investigated,” the Additional SP said.

Based on the probe report filed by Investigating Officer (IO) Shivraj Singh in September last year, an FIR was filed at Gajraula police station in Amroha against the then CO Mohal Lal, sub-inspectors Vijay Kumar Yadav, Neeraj Kumar, RC Verma, and constables Suresh Kumar, Himmat Singh, Krishna Pal Chauhan, Monu Tomar, Sandhya Tyagi and Ritu Dhaka. The FIR stated that all the 10 police personnel acted with malice and “violated the laid down rules by creating fake documents and giving false information with an intention to hurt them and keep them in illegal custody”.

All the 10 have been booked under IPC sections 166 (public servant disobeying law, with intent to cause injury to any person), 203 (giving false information respecting an offence committed), 211 (false charge of offence made with intent to injure) and 342 (wrongful confinement).

Lal, meanwhile, has rejected the CB-CID’s charge. He said that sex rackets were booming in Amroha at that time, and continue to do so now.

“The entire operation was done in the presence of several journalists. All the newspapers and documents should be checked. At that time, several news articles were published related to the busting (of the sex racket) and no one questioned anything. There were videos of the raid that were played on the news channels. There was nothing wrong in our raid. A lie cannot live for long and if I have done wrong then that will come out,” said Lal, who after retiring from the police force had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Ghaziabad on Republic Party of India (Athawale) ticket, but lost.

It wasn’t an isolated sex racket, Lal claimed, adding that there was a whole factory of such illegal activities going on in the area. “Those involved in running the sex rackets obviously do not want the police to raise a finger against them, so that they could continue with their illegal activities,” said Lal.